Wallingford mayoral candidates are preparing for the town's next chapter

In just two and a half weeks, Wallingford residents will have a new mayor for the first time in 40 years.

William Dickinson has been mayor since 1984 and has decided not to run for another term in office. Now, two candidates with different life experiences want to lead the town’s next chapter.

Democratic mayoral candidate Riley O’Connell says his whole life has been about service.

“Serving in the United States Army Reserves is a way that I could take it into my own hands and make sure that I was serving my country in the best way that I could,” O’Connell said.

He is the fifth generation of his family to live in Wallingford and his career has taken him from Connecticut to D.C. to work at the Department of Justice. And now, he’s back.

“This has always been my home which is why I decided to run in the first place,” O’Connell said.

The 27-year-old is making a second run at mayor. If he wins, he’d be the state’s youngest mayor in office.

“I think people forget that when our current mayor was first elected 40 years ago, he was hardly older than I was, had never served in elected office before, and at least did a good job those first few years because he had that short term plan.”

He’s running against seven-term council member, Republican Vinny Cervoni.

“I think this town has largely been run very well for the past 40 years and there are a lot of things that residents and business owners want to see continue, like the sense of fiscal responsibility,” Cervoni said.

He moved to Wallingford 29 years ago. That’s also when he began practicing law.

“I think I’ve grown up with a strong family background, family values that are important,” Cervoni said.

The last election saw O’Connell come within 400 votes of Dickenson. Cervoni says it could be the same this year.

“I think the higher than usual voter turnout will be interesting, and I think it may be close,” he said.

NBC Connecticut asked both candidates about their top priorities for Wallingford. Cervoni said infrastructure was high on the list, from roads to buildings.

“[I plan to] come up with hopefully a five year if not shorter plan to figure out what we need to do to bring things up to speed and make the town a little shiner,” Cervoni said.

He adds that digital access to many parts of the town is also in need of an upgrade.

“Finding as many digital efficiencies as we can. Getting away from timecards for employees and digitizing payroll.”

Those are the same issues for O’Connell.

“From the sidewalk right here to the roads. We have to our town hall building and the failings of our public parks like the community pool, in addition to technological infrastructure,” O’Connell said. “Being able to pay your bills online. Having direct deposits for town employees, these were common sense practices 20, 30 years ago, let alone in 2023.”

O’Connell says he also wants to be more accessible to the public both online and in person. He also says he wants to have more transparency in the administration.

We asked the candidates their thoughts on how the town handled communication about the recent police-involved shooting on North Airline Road.

“It’s an active investigation, we understand that. So, we don’t expect to have all that information available right away, but to not even know the road was closed when people were trying to head to work. To not even know why your street – your next-door neighbor’s house was completely shut down with all these officers,” O’Connell explained. “We need to have some way of doing a better job of communicating with the public because it’s a matter of safety and a matter of transparency.”

Cervoni feels the communication was handled well. He believes if there’s a threat to the public, information should be, and would be relayed quickly. But, given the details of this specific case, he says he understands why little was released.

“I think it's a little more reasonable that a measured approach was taken by the police department,” Cervoni said.

One of the two candidates will be elected Wallingford’s next new mayor on November 7.