RUTLAND — David Allaire, a 19-year member of the Board of Aldermen, is making his third bid to unseat Mayor Chris Louras.
Allaire also ran against Louras in 2013 and 2015, but this time he said the mayor’s handling of refugee resettlement and the city’s budget underscored a lack of transparency and leadership in City Hall.
Michael Coppinger, executive director of the Downtown Rutland Partnership, announced his candidacy in late November, making it a three-way race.
Allaire said that although he’s not opposed to the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Rutland, he’d like to see the program “slowed down if not stopped.”
He was one of seven board members who endorsed a letter to the U.S. State Department in July withholding support for the program until they were given more information. He also spearheaded a review by the city attorney to investigate whether the mayor’s actions in advancing resettlement violated the city charter.
City attorney Charles Romeo concluded the mayor had not violated any laws. Rutland was approved as a resettlement site for up to 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees beginning this year.
Louras started exploring the possibility of Rutland becoming a resettlement site in November 2015. Most members of the board and the public were not informed until a news conference in April.
“That lack of transparency and that lack of leadership I believe has led to what I see is a major divide here in the city,” Allaire said.
He said there are costs and expenses associated with resettlement that have not been fully explored. He also suggested that the vetting process for Syrian refugees is not rigorous enough, despite assurances from U.S. intelligence agencies and law enforcement that displaced Syrians undergo the most exhaustive background checks of any group entering the United States.
Allaire said the whole program should be re-evaluated but stopped short of endorsing President-elect Donald Trump’s call to ban all Syrian refugees from entering the country.
“I don’t necessarily totally agree with Donald Trump,” Allaire said, “but certainly more than I would an incoming (Hillary) Clinton administration.”
Though candidates running for local office are not obligated to identify their party affiliation, Allaire served as a Republican in the Vermont House from 2001 to 2007. He helped secure funding for upgrades to routes 4 and 7 in Rutland County and worked to initiate improvements on other local infrastructure projects.
Rep. David Potter, D-Clarendon, served with Allaire for two years. “In terms of Rutland County affairs we cooperated very well, I believe,” Potter said.
Allaire was also sharply critical of the mayor’s handling of the city budget for fiscal year 2018 and in particular his efforts to restructure the Fire Department without first securing the support of rank-and-file firefighters.
On Dec. 20 the board voted to reject the mayor’s Fire Department budget, which is down about $35,000 from the current year. The mayor and fire chief have said the cuts are related to a restructuring plan that would reduce by one the number of firefighters on each shift and create two administrative positions.
Allaire said the mayor and fire chief should have had discussions with members of the department and the union before moving ahead.
“I think there are things that need to be done, but this is not the way to do it,” Allaire said.
Beyond the fire department fracas, Allaire said the mayor had been irresponsible in handing the board a budget that is up about 10 percent over the current year. The mayor said he chose not to make any cuts after the board asked him to include a $650,000 increase in the city’s contribution to the pension fund. The mayor added in the pension fund increase and told aldermen it was up to them to make the cuts necessary to present voters with a responsible budget.
The mayor said that would enable the board to prioritize spending.
Allaire said he did not agree with the mayor’s reasoning and that the budget was “basically dumped at our feet.”
“There’s no justification for that argument at all,” Allaire said.
At their last meeting in December the board cut more than $1 million from the mayor’s budget. Allaire, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, voted to cut funding for two positions in the Police Department with the assurance that if those positions are filled the board would take money from the unassigned fund balance to pay for them.
If elected, Allaire said one of his top priorities would be to slow spending in the city. He said he wouldn’t be looking to make any major cuts in police and firefighting budgets or the Department of Public Works. He said those budgets should perhaps be level funded.
“I think we need to re-evaluate all of our city departments,” he said.
Asked if he would make any changes to Project Vision, the community policing initiative credited with driving down drug-related crime in Rutland, Allaire said he would not.
“I wouldn’t foresee making any major changes, at least not at the outset,” Allaire said. “You don’t need to fix something that’s not broken.”
The board and mayor remain at an impasse over the Fire Department budget.
