October 31, 2025 - At our October 9th Community Gathering, members of All In for Milford worked in small groups to compose questions to ask this year's mayoral candidates. Rich Smith was able to attend the gathering and answer our questions that night. Today we were able to interview Tony Giannattasio and ask him the same questions.
All In for Milford encourages all Milford residents to vote in this year's election. Your vote is your voice!
Below are the responses from both candidates:
What is your plan to make sure food and housing are deeply affordable and accessible? We talked about how even housing that is held affordable to some degree is way out of reach for a lot of people even working full time. What is your plan for that?
What we need to do is incent, use the tools that government provides us to incent the development of affordable housing. I've knocked on 3,500 doors. I’m amazing. I find out that a starter home is $550,000 $560,000. I couldn't afford to live in Milford today. Our kids can't afford to live here. In some ways we're the victim of our own success.
One of the first things I did as mayor was bring together the food pantries. It was the first thing I did and I had a whiteboard in my office to say, ‘How can the city help Purple Pantry and get food to kids and the health department? How can we work together more efficiently so that we don't conflict, compete, compliment each other? We had a series of four meetings and I think the result of that…it was recognized in Hartford. So first thing we need to do is make a commitment that those are our priorities.
The city has a lot of tools available, whether it's tax incentives, maybe it's the way that we partner with them as mayor…they've got [to make] a profit, nobody's going to build anything if it's going to be a loss. So we got to deal with the economic realities. So how can the city incent them? What tools do we have to incent them? And that is expedited permitting. That is private / public partnerships. But first it starts with a commitment to say we need to be inclusive, we need to be a community.
When I came into this position, the first thing that I did is I took an inventory of city owned property. We had two lots on High Street that we put out for RFP that the city had no use for, and that was specific to creating more housing because we know nationally and throughout the state and throughout the city, there's a shortage. And we put them out for a market rate value, which was very affordable. One lot was purchased by a neighbor to build a single family house for a relative in their family that wanted to move back to Milford, I think it was her daughter. And the other property was purchased [with] parameters for an affordability component [of] 30%, and that is a three family house.
The idea is I will continue to do that. Whenever we have these small pieces or parcels of land that the city owns, we can control that and we can make sure that that goes back on the market for affordability. That's what I will continue to do is take an inventory of city owned property, and I've demonstrated that I've done that. Those two pieces are under contract and they're being sold and it's going to uplift the community.
How will you as mayor respond to rising hate speech and dehumanizing rhetoric?
How do you address it? You set an example and you get out there and you talk to kids and you talk about kindness and you talk about civility and you model the behavior. So I do that most places I go. I talk about civility, I talk about the fact that if you’ve got nothing nice to say, don't say anything.
This is a low point for us. What we're seeing in Washington is disheartening and frightening. There was a time when I was council chairman of the Democrat Party. We would have our disputes in the Milford Citizen, respectfully, and then we would go out for a beer and we would do fundraisers or Toys for Tots. It was a different world. We can get back there
One of the things I said when I kicked off my campaign was let us set an example in this campaign for how campaigns should be run, set an example for the state and for the nation.
I believe in unity, and I always have, and I've always worked across the aisle. I've been in public service for over 20 years as a volunteer, as an elected official. I was on the zoning board. I was on the Board of Alderman for 16 years. So I've seen that rhetoric on both sides of the aisle. And I will always be here to say, “Listen, we need to respect one another, especially in a public forum, in a public place.” We cannot allow that type of behavior or that type of speech. Because what that does is that creates anxiety with people. When other people hear it, then they feel that they want to jump in.. And we don't want that. I think Milford is a community where people want a quality of life and peace of mind, and that's what I represent.
I will always represent that, and I will always represent all the people of Milford regardless of their political affiliation or their beliefs, whether that's different religious backgrounds, different cultures. That's primarily the job of a mayor, is to go out and support these people where they are in their space.
What is your perspective about the three year budget cuts to the Board of Education (2023 1.8%, 2024, 1.3% and 2025, 1.2%)? How would you approach this and how can we get to somewhere where we are not in this situation every year?
Let me bring it up to my personal belief in public education. My mom was a school teacher in Milford. I grew up firmly understanding [the importance of] public schools.
People say to me, I don't have kids in the public. So what? There's a social contract implicit in you being a resident of this country that we have an obligation to educate the kids. I hate the saying, but the alternative is not something you want to think about.
How to deal with the budget details? There's debates about where we can make cuts, what positions are necessary. I'm not a subject matter expert on it and I'm smart enough oftentimes to look to people that know more about things than I do and trust that if I feel that they have the integrity to be doing the right thing, I'll question. But at the end of the day, what you need to know from the leader is, are you committed to public education?
That was happening when I was on the board of Alderman. We had a situation where they spoke about the possibility of closing a school because they couldn't meet the budget. In order to meet the budget, there was potentially a school closure that could have happened. I will continue…working with all the stakeholders. As alderman, what I did at that point is I made a motion to fully fund the budget; however it was reduced, but my motion represented the 1.8%, the full amount. And I also asked the superintendent if she would form a long range plan so we can see what our schools are going to look like in the future. So we weren't subject to these types of, I would say, budget cuts, and also the potential of closing a school in order to meet a specific budget.
I want to make sure that these schools are all being appropriately funded, and if we're going to move in a new direction of building a new school, what that's going to look like as well. So I've always been pro-education and I will continue to be that.
And I continued to do that as mayor through my bonding packages by allowing them and helping them to borrow money in order to improve upon the programming in the schools…we're getting more into engineering. We're getting more into more industrial-based programs, more computer-based. We just bonded for the eSports arenas, the childcare development. We have one at Foran and we just bonded for a new childcare development program at Jonathan Law.
And the good news is that with the budgets, the way they've been adopted, we are still outperforming other schools…we are making progress since COVID, and I think that supporting the budget, the education budget's very important and we have to continue to work towards that and do that in every budget cycle.
It seems of late, everything is party line driven. How are you going to see to it that the people that have been elected are focusing more on what's good for the community versus the party line?
It wasn't always like this, but it is now. When I announced for this run, four days before I went public, I called every one of my Republican friends on the board–except for Win Smith because I didn't have his phone number–but I called all the others and I said, “Listen, I'm not calling you to ask to support me. I know how it goes. I said, “I'm calling out of respect. I had the privilege of working with you when I was mayor, so I wanted to tell you before I told everyone else.”
If we're acting on the goodness of our heart and we're acting in a way that we think is in the best interest of Milford, put it out there and please go over to the Republican side or go over to the Democratic side, and convince them, inspire them, be leaders, but model the right behavior right now. Sometimes I feel like there just isn't that leadership. I mean the current mayor is often antagonistic with Democrats, even with his own party. Sometimes we need more of a diplomatic approach.
One of the things I talk about is opening up City Hall when I'm mayor, inviting the public, that could become a real problem. You have a hundred people in there that disagree with you and you can lose control. But what I tell people is if they leave that night, they may not agree with me. They may even be angry with the things that I say or things I'm doing, but they will not leave there not feeling respected and included. That's how it starts.
I've been seeing the complete opposite. I've had the ability to work across the aisle as an alderman. As mayor, good things have happened with the board unanimously, or the majority of the board in some cases–the overwhelming majority supported the bonding package. They supported the first budget that I put out. They supported my public safety plan, which I worked with the police chief very closely with on implementing speed cameras and school zones, different types of safety measures to change behavior so people are safer, the pedestrians walking on the streets and kids getting on and off the bus at the schools and crossing the streets to get to school, things like that.
The board has also supported my prohibition on vape shops, which went overwhelmingly great. We've limited the amount of vape shops. We're at 15, so there's not going to be any additional, but we actually even closed one because we did some regulation enforcement and found out the one next to Stonebridge was not following the law, and they're moving out. So I think that's good. And that was all supported by the Board of Alderman, working with the police department appropriately. funding all the departments that weren't appropriately funded prior to me taking office. I saw a bipartisanship of people coming together in the best interest of Milford. I'm really happy about that.
Would you support detached Accessory Dwelling Units, mixed use lofts, home share, or other new housing that doesn't require significant construction?
I know the need. I mean I talked to people. There is that tension between people not wanting to look like a shanty town and still providing these alternative units. So whatever it takes to get us there. I want to be careful never to make sweeping statements to please the audience. So my heart's in the right place. I understand we want our kids to be able to afford to live here. If we have the room and we could build an addition or another structure on our property, and we can do it in good taste in a way that aligns with the community? Absolutely.
We need to be more innovative with our building. We need to be more innovative with our vision of Milford, how to get us to a place with affordable housing that our kids can come [live in] without compromising what so many people value in this city, the DNA of a small New England town that we have here.
I think that's a great concept. I think I would love to see something like that come before the Planning & Zoning board, even if it was a tiny house community and it had specific regulations that would allow for smaller structures on smaller lots to make it more affordable. I think that's where the direction of development is going nationally. I think that there's a big push. The challenge here is in Milford, we don't have an abundance of land. So that really puts us in a tough position for new developments like that, because that requires acreage. But specific to neighborhoods, I was happy to see that there was an ADU allowed in certain zones.
There's a subcommittee on the Planning & Zoning board. So if they're looking to amend to allow for detached to allow for some of this new conceptual living, housing–I think that would be an interesting topic for discussion, to have a public hearing to see where people are with that. Because Milford is a multi-generational community and people are living longer. And I can see families now that have 1, 2, 3 generations under one roof. So if somebody wants to feel a little more independent and not be attached to the house, but be detached, I think that's a great opportunity.
What else can be done to ensure that those that are food insecure have access to healthy, adequate food and can get to it?
The devil's in the details, right? But those things came up when we did our meetings on food insecurity. I learned so much about culture, refrigeration and even Purple Pantry has its drawbacks. A lot of people take all the food, but it also has its positives.
What I tell you is, and you know from what I did as mayor, that I have a commitment to understand and make sure the richest country in the history of western civilization, we shouldn't have people going hungry. Remember we have people buying gold plated shower curtains for their yachts and we have kids going hungry. It's just wrong.
When I was mayor I met with [Beth-El Executive Director] Jenn Paradis for two and a half hours, just in awe, in awe of the work these folks do…talking about certifying you as a tenant so that you know how to be a responsible tenant. So you're like, “Wow that's going into the weeds.” That's what I love. I love having those discussions.
So what my answer to you is, I'm with you on this. It was important enough to me to make it my first priority.
[Note: On October 10th, the day after Rich Smith was asked this question, the USDA informed state agencies that SNAP benefits could be cancelled at the end of the month.]
Right now is a perfect example of what we're doing as a city based on what's happening potentially with the food stamp cuts, with SNAP. We have a lot of the providers coming together. We have people that are volunteering warehouse space for additional food items. We have a community, ShopRite, who has stepped up and is saying to shoppers in real time, “If you're shopping anyways, if you can purchase a couple or extra few items [to donate]”. And we're working with the health department and our human services department…to identify what the needs are specifically. ShopRite is willing to transport that food to either the Milford Food Bank or to this other warehouse location. And we are putting it out on social media.
We're working with the United Way, we're working with all of the providers. At the same time, [we] let the people that need it know where to go get it. The Board of Education is stepping up, and they're providing maybe a truck to logistically move the food around so we can get it to the places where people need it. And we also have a food bin box here in our lobby that is provided to us by one of the stakeholders. You're going to see a lot more of this. And there's been meetings on it. I spoke to the health director about it, and we're going to be partnering with a lot of these stakeholders to make sure that we get the food, and we know what food is needed specifically, and then we get it to a location where people can accept it.
When elected officials are blaming marginalized people that have no power, or are dehumanizing different marginalized groups, what would your response be as mayor when that is happening?
Well, legally it's a very gray area, even at the federal level and the state level. I don't know that we address it in the city of ordinances or I don't know the answer. Luckily I haven't seen a lot of that. I see unbecoming (speech), but I haven't seen a lot of that here in Milford. Unfortunately, it's become almost too much the norm at the national level.
It comes back to modeling behavior, and no hesitation on my part to call that out…that's what leaders do. They stand up to that kind of thing. And you know what I'm going to tell you? If they do [stand up], they'll have 99.9% of the people in Milford supporting you. Nobody wants that kind of stuff. Nobody does. Don't let it become contagious. Shut it down. I'd love for that to be my role if I have the opportunity. Some things give me pleasure.
I'd love to smack people that hurt animals. Can I say that?
We need to speak up against it. Absolutely. And you could count on me for that. I'm saying it here in front of the group of people. I'll never let you down on that.
Everybody has human rights and people should not be marginalized in any conversation or any discussion. We all are here together living in a city, as one Milford.
I can tell you this just through my experience–we'll take a specific example, is people might call and they might raise concerns about homelessness. Well, homelessness is not illegal. So that's one of the first things that I address. It's not illegal to be homeless. So what we do is we have reach out, we have Beth_El Center, I work with [Beth-El Executive Director] Jenn [Paradis], and she's excellent, to reach out to these communities. If that's a community that you would consider as marginalized.
I don't even think that that fits Milford. because Milford to me has always been a great charitable community, made up of so many nonprofits. And, if you look at the slogan, it's the small city with the big heart, I don't think that people, especially elected officials that I work with on a daily basis, prescribe to that type of [behavior], or I don't see that here.
How would you make technology and transportation accessible to folks with disabilities or who don’t have access to certain technology? How can we also create spaces in Milford for people who are isolated due to lack of accessible transportation or technology?
I'll rely on people that know better and have given some thought. Not everybody has a smartphone. God knows I wish far fewer people had smartphones. The world would be a better place. But what I'm going to do is direct your question into the larger macro issue of how do we deal with food insecurity?
But I'll fold it back into the larger issue of saying that's got to be part of the discussion. When we talk about insecurity, understanding our population, understanding where the need is and what the logistical challenges are, getting some food. But if it's a priority to make sure people don't go hungry in Milford, I go back to say, I know Milford. I've grown up here.
Seniors who do feel isolated, aside from things like inviting them to the senior center and reaching out, the first thing to do is know where they live, know they're out there. We used to have a group that tracked the homeless and we would meet every month. I don't remember if we were involved and we would get a status on where those people were and how they were doing. That's the kind of outreach that we need to be involved in. Know us as a city by what we do and how we treat the least fortunate members. And so publicly, you have my commitment.
For the people that don't have the technology, I've seen a lot of the nonprofits–even our senior center will make phone calls for these people, will advocate for these people to get them a ride, whether it's to a doctor's appointment or it is to the food bank. I know we worked with the transit Authority and there was free rides available at one point for people that maybe can't afford an Uber to get them from point A to point B to utilize these types of services that they may not have access to by the phone.
Especially now coming into the winter months, whether it's fuel aid or whether they need some home improvements done on their house, small things that they necessarily can't afford–there's money that is set aside for people that need these special types of services. So I think Milford does a great job at doing that. And as far as improving the communication or the technology, I think the technology's there. It's just getting the technology to the people that need it. And there's a lot of things that are held at the library, which is a great meeting place for a lot of these people. Or they can share information and get it out to people.
I think All in for Milford is another example where people can come together and you've talked about different issues, whether it's housing, who to communicate with or who to contact, or, “Hey, we'll make the call for you, or we'll set up the meeting for you.” Even with food insecurity, we can bring you, or we can bring it to you. I think outlets like that All in for Milford is another great example of what this community has evolved to–we want to make sure that people know other than the city, we’re here to help.
Can you respond to the issue of private equity and Airbnb operators changing the character of Milford, buying houses at the coastline? Specifically, regulation of Airbnbs?
Laurel Beach, where I live, we actually hired an attorney to come and pass a charter change to disallow (Airbnbs). The problem is this, how do you know if somebody's there for him to be in their place? How do you know if it's not my cousin who I told him he could stay there for two weeks? You don't know. You're going to look at my checkbook. So the way they enforce it, the condos are always online looking to see if any of their properties are posted on these sites. It takes a lot of work, but it can be done. In talking about [policy] laboratories, this problem is being addressed around the country.
And there was a house on Harvest Lane and they were calling me up saying, “We've got to stop these parties.” The things they alleged were happening in the streets of their neighborhood make me blush. Now they investigated, and some of it was true, some of it might've been a matter of perception, but they were distraught.
And it's a legal issue, it's a constitutional issue. It's being discussed at courts around the country. But you know what? I can tell you I shut it down. I went to court and got an injunction and shut down the party. I was kind of shocked. I was able to do it. But you had to try. You got the judge to agree and those parties stopped. So what that serves as an example, that controlling these Airbnbs, while difficult and presenting some very serious legal challenges, it can be done.
Look around the country to find out who's successful. If nothing else, we really want to [emphasize] that we are not alone. We have [policy] laboratories all over the country that we need to pay attention to, listen to and learn from. Everything from housing, food insecurity to Airbnbs.
We're looking into it in real time, and we're doing a comparison because every city is different. But what's unique about Milford, to your point, is we are a shoreline community. We are a city made up of beach communities, beach associations, some of them being private and some of them being public. So we have to be respectful of the neighbors. And I think by putting parameters on Airbnbs in the respect of making it more of a long-term stay versus short-term we're comparing it to surrounding towns that are comparable to Milford.
Why are people coming here to Airbnbs, is the first question. It's mostly because of the shoreline is by making it a longer stay versus a shorter stay, you attract maybe more of a family than more of a situation where you're going to have maybe an abundance of people that are looking to maybe just have a good time, so to speak, and might cause some noise. We've gotten complaints about noise, obviously, but by making the stay longer, I think you're actually opening it up to a different type of use, more of a family type use. And I think that'll definitely calm it down a little bit so these people don't feel that they're being targeted.
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