[R]utland City Mayor Christopher Louras stood on a milk crate rather than a soapbox Monday night as he formally announced his bid for a sixth two-year term.
Louras said he often found it difficult to toot his own horn, but this election is too important for him to not get his message out.
“There’s a national tragedy taking place,” Louras said. “Lives hang in the balance, just like the lives hanged in the balance for our ancestors 100 years ago when they came to this country.”
In a campaign kickoff speech to more than 50 people at The Bakery in downtown Rutland, Louras said he didn’t believe the upcoming mayoral election on Town Meeting Day was a referendum on refugee resettlement in the city, a proposal he strongly backs.
“I’m being told that the press is saying that it’s a referendum,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “Frankly, I’ve only heard that from the press and I have not heard that from the public.”
Then he added, “I think it certainly is a referendum on my leadership, it’s a referendum on our successes.”
Louras is in a four-way race to retain his job as the city’s chief executive officer. Challengers include David Allaire, who has served nearly two decades on the city’s Board of Aldermen and is making his third bid to oust Louras from the mayor’s office.
Also running is Michael Coppinger, the head of the Downtown Rutland Partnership, a marketing organization for the city’s central business district. Coppinger, who has also served on the Board of Aldermen in the past, ran for the mayor’s post in 2007, finishing fifth in a six-person field that saw Louras win his first term as the city’s top elected officeholder.
Both Allaire and Coppinger, have been critical of Louras for his handling of the refugee resettlement issue. A fourth candidate for mayor, Kam Johnston, is also seeking three other offices, including seats on the city School Board, Board of Aldermen and city assessor.
Refugee resettlement has been a hot-button issue in the city for more than a year, well before President Donald Trump took office and issued an executive order last month that brought the program to a halt.
Louras started exploring the possibility of Rutland becoming a resettlement site in the fall of 2015. However, most members of the Board of Aldermen and the public were not informed until an April news conference.
Several months later in September, following heated debate on the matter in the city, the U.S. State Department approved Rutland as a resettlement site for up to 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees a year, with the families to start arriving at the beginning of this year.
Two families did arrive in January, and a week later Trump issued an executive order suspending refugee resettlement for 120 days and indefinitely barring Syrian refugees from the country.
A federal judge’s ruling in Washington state late last week rescinded nearly all of the provisions of that executive order. If the decision is upheld by an appeals court, refugee resettlement could continue in Rutland.
“Though there was division, we’re coming back together in a common purpose to embrace our new neighbors,” Louras said Monday evening of the city. “That includes people who were healthy skeptics or strong opponents of refugee resettlement.”
Resettlement wasn’t the only issue the mayor discussed Monday.
Louras talked about how the scourge of heroin addiction put the city on the map — not only because of the magnitude of the problem, but also for the way the community has sought to help people addicted to opiates seek treatment. He pointed to the work of Project Vision, a coalition of community groups and government agencies that banded together to provide a comprehensive solution to problems caused by opiate abuse in the city.
That initiative, the mayor said, has attracted statewide and national attention, with officials traveling from Rutland to communities across the country to help others seeking to replicate the city’s work.
Now, he said, the attention the city is receiving for its humanitarian response to the refugee crisis in Syria is putting the city in the spotlight again, not only on the statewide and national level, but also globally.
“This community is being judged, we’re being assessed, and we’re being defined by how we respond to what’s happening around us nationally and internationally,” the mayor said. “Like it or not, we’re being watched.”
In his roughly 20-minute speech, Louras also touched on his efforts in office to improve budgeting to reduce deficits and stepped up capital planning to upgrade infrastructure.
However, he kept returning to the topic of leadership, and the need for a mayor to be resolute in his convictions.
That theme was sounded by his supporters, including several candidates for seats on the Board of Aldermen on Town Meeting Day.
Rebecca Mattis, a candidate for the city’s Board of Aldermen, said she backs Louras because of his “can-do” attitude.
“He seems to be a very fact-oriented person,” she said. “He bases his judgment on evidence and I really, really like and respect that.”
John Atwood, another aldermanic candidate, agreed.
“I really thought he demonstrated tremendous courage doing refugee resettlement,” Atwood said. “It’s reassuring to know that our mayor is going to exercise resolute leadership when we really need it.”
Added Lisa Ryan, also running for the board, “(Louras) stayed strong in the midst of some really difficult things going on in the public eye.”
Not everyone at the event Monday had made up their minds about who they will support in the mayor’s race.
Alderman George Gides Jr., who is up for re-election on Town Meeting Day, said he has yet to decide.
“This is still too early in the process,” he said, adding he wants to hear more from all the candidates. “I need to get a sense of what’s really going on, and do I agree with their positions.”
Louras, as he closed his address Monday, said in past elections he has referred to the city as being at a crossroads, but that is not the case this year.
“We’re in the middle of a highway going 100 miles an hour straight ahead,” he said. “Now is the time to keep our foot on the gas.”
