Mayor must assist young councilmen

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2:05 PM Friday, November 6, 2009

2010 may turn out to be the most challenging year of Middletown Mayor Larry Mulligan’s four-year term.

Mulligan, now wrapping up the second year of his first term as mayor, will be working with a new and significantly younger City Council when January arrives.

Tuesday’s election resulted in victory for two political newbies — Joshua Laubach, 27, and A.J. Smith, 20 — who will be sworn in and will take office in January. Council hasn’t had a member in his or her 20s since James Armbruster II, the son of the current council member, in the 1990s.

Last week, Laubach pulled off the biggest upset of Election Night, defeating well-known 3rd Ward council representative Anthony Marconi, who was first elected in 2005.

Smith’s victory over 67-year-old John Soppanish in the Middletown’s 2nd Ward was notable because of Smith’s youth, but both were trying to win public office for the first time. (Incumbent 2nd Ward representative Leslie Ford will be leaving council — involuntarily — at the end of 2009 because she failed to submit enough valid signatures on her nominating petitions.)

Laubach and Smith will be joined on council by local attorney Daniel Picard, 53, who defeated Paul Nagy for the 4th Ward seat that’s been held for nearly 16 years by David Schiavone. (Schiavone decided not to seek re-election.) Although Picard is taking a council seat for the first time, he is a familiar figure in Middletown civic life and has been in past local leadership roles.

Veteran council members James Armbruster (who was re-elected Tuesday to his 1st Ward seat), Anita Scott Jones and Bill Becker will be returning in January. It will be interesting to see how the 20-somethings — Smith and Laubach — deal with the more mature and experienced members of council.

This we know: It’s incumbent on Mayor Mulligan to step up and demonstrate the leadership skills needed to bring together the veterans and the new members, especially Smith and Laubach. Both demonstrated a considerable knowledge of the city’s challenges and operations during the election campaign, but campaigning and actually governing are very different roles.

And politics can be a rough business — even on the local level. In 2006, newly elected 2nd Ward representative Bill “Kip” Moore, a political novice, found himself in the middle of a struggle between two council factions — and holding the deciding vote that unseated Schiavone as mayor that year. The in-fighting continued and a disenchanted Moore resigned his seat before his first year was out.

Although voters decided on Nov. 3 to shrink the size of council and to scrap ward representation — in order to prevent a return to the factional politics that plagued council during parts of this decade — those changes won’t take effect until after the 2013 election. So Middletonians have another four years of the seven-member council that includes a mayor, two at-large members and four ward representatives.

We applaud the council members — including Mayor Mulligan — who have worked over the past three years to restore credibility and to repair the damage that was done by past councils. Middletown’s challenges are great, and the incoming council must come together quickly so the city can move forward.

Mulligan was a council newbie himself when he was appointed to take Moore’s 2nd Ward seat in late 2006 (before running at-large for the mayor’s seat in 2007), so he should have an appreciation for how Smith and Laubach’s lives are about to change.

We trust he will take an active role in bringing them up to speed — and ensuring that these final four years for ward representation get off to a good start in the New Year.

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