Where are all the Promises Mr. Mayor?

Where are all the Promises Mr. Mayor?

By Brian E. Clark

This week, on Wednesday, it will mark the 6 Month Anniversary since Tony Moreno, violently threw his infant son Aaden Moreno, off the Arrigoni Bridge, to his death, and then attempted his own suicide by jumping off the bridge, himself. This was, and is a huge tragedy, and an enormous loss to our community, and from the instance of the very act itself, our Mayor wanted to make all sorts of changes to the Bridge; To make it safer, and harder for someone to commit suicide, or murder, by placing steel cable nets, and telephones on the bridge. (For someone to call for help, I would assume)

I admit I was hard on the Mayor then. I still maintain that all the promises, throughout all of the Headlines, was rhetoric. Very quickly, once I called the Mayor out on this, nothing more was ever said, and to this day, 6 months later, still nothing was done. In fact, not just the Mayor is guilty of this, we all are, because the last anything was said publicly, was on September 10^th, by the Hartford Courant. So, I ask a very simple question: Mr. Mayor, now that you have your well-earned term in office for 4 years, where are all the promises you made regarding the Bridge?

The Arrigoni Bridge, to begin with, is owned by the State of Connecticut. Now that that is clear, understand that Mayor Drew has zero decision making power in what happens to that bridge. The State could paint it pink, and there is nothing he could do. That all said, he is supposedly great friends with Dannel Malloy, so with friends like that, I’m guessing if you had a friend like that, if you wanted to drop a few hints on positive changes you wanted to make, to one of 4000 State owned bridges, you may have a decent chance of at least getting your idea heard. However, no, nothing has been done, and since at least August, I haven’t heard him utter a word about that bridge.

Listen, I think it is a noble cause if you truly in your heart of hearts, want to make efforts to put suicide prevention measures in place ANYWHERE, in the community. I have known many people who have taken their own lives, so coming from someone who knows suicide, and has seen someone actually take their life, and have been powerless to do anything to bring them back, I don’t care if you are a Democrat or Republican, but if you say you are going to do something like that, do it damn it!

This isn’t a political promise like you’re going to lower taxes, or open a donut shop; This is real life, and people are dying! He said he was going to do all these grand things to that bridge, and now it’s his responsibility to at least see it through. We, the voters, have a responsibility to make sure he sees it through, because we put him there to do these things. I don’t know if the measures he mentioned will help, but hell, anything preventing a 120 foot fall in to the icy waters of the Connecticut River, probably isn’t a bad deal. If it’s fences, or phones, or nets and cables, we have a responsibility to do something.

If Aaden Moreno was allowed to live, he would be a jovial little 13 month old baby, probably just having learned to walk, and on the verge of saying his first words. Now, his presence with the Almighty God, I would think his wish would be to prevent anyone else from meeting the same fate he did. Dan Drew’s email is mayor@middletownct.gov, and his phone number is 860-638-4801. I think it’s time we tell him to follow through on his promises.

He won’t even speak to me, but maybe he’ll listen to you.