MERIDEN — City Council Area 3 extends across significant sections of East Main Street, Wilbur Cross Parkway, and I-91, along the city’s southeastern side.
Republican Minority Leader Dan Brunet and Democrat Krystle Blake currently represent the district. This year Blake, a one-term council member, is up for re-election, being challenged by Republican Michael Zakrzewski.
Zakrzewski, 63, is a retired Meriden police captain with 31 years of service, having left the department in 2017. A lifelong resident of the city, he graduated from Post University with a bachelor’s in criminal justice and a master’s degree in public administration. A past president of the Meriden Lions, Zakrzewski has based his platform on economic development, making the city a better place to live, and being an open communicator with the public.
Blake, 39, is also a lifelong Area 3 resident and graduate of Maloney High School. Currently an Assistant Executive Director of the Boys and Girls Club of Meriden, she is campaigning on close collaboration with the police department, continued business development downtown, and providing increased youth programming and mental health resources. She also has a long history of working in nonprofits at the local, state, and federal levels.
We asked the candidates several questions to get their perspective on the issues and what they would do if voted into office.
Q: What inspired you to run for City Council?
Blake: Obviously, this is my second time running, so when I ran well four years ago already, I was like, I just want to help the city with the focus on the kids. It always goes back to the kids … I want to continue to support the police budget and any resources they need. We’ve done such great work combating the crime and the arrest and things like that … and continue to a little bit closer with economic development, it’s something that I’ll peek at when comes time when we pick new committees and things like that to see is it something that I could jump on the committee to help them and say, what can we do better with bringing in businesses.
Zakrzewski: “You need somebody who knows the town like I do. I talk up Meriden all the time, I’m a lifelong resident, and I believe in this town. I grew up going to the movie theater on Broad Street, long before you’ll ever remember, there was a bowling alley on Grove Street — and this town had a lot of opportunities growing up. It’s a great town, and I want to keep it that way for future families. I wanna make sure economically, we got to promote this town.” Zakrzewski said he was asked by the Republican Town Committee to run for the seat.
Q: To you, what is one of the biggest issues facing Meriden?
Blake: I think obviously one of the problems is social services, mental health, just services all around. Whether it’s for seniors, whether it’s for the layperson, how do they get the help they need, whether it’s for kids and youth. I just feel like even in the schools, like right after the pandemic, if we could have social workers and more people that are educated and have the knowledge to kind of help people where they’re at. I just think that’s big across the community.
Zakrzewski: Economic development. Because, think about it, everything runs through the economy of the city. People have jobs, they have money to spend, they have money to pay their taxes. If we don’t have businesses, we don’t have corporations coming in and paying some of the load, you can’t run a city just on the backs of homeowners. It doesn’t work. … I’ve been in these council meetings as a police officer, I’ve been there as a civilian, and sometimes I wonder about putting the spending in a different place. It’s real money, it’s taxpayer monies. We owe that taxpayer. We have to be accountable to them.
Q: What is your strategy for Meriden to go about attracting new business?
Blake: I think when we have these programs, it’s making sure people know about it, and enough people. And it may be like, We can go over this for days about how do people know about it? Are we getting to the right people? It might be on the city’s website, [Communications Specialist Anthony] Terzi might share it once in a while on social media, but if we want to be attracting businesses from outside of Meriden to come in, how do we do that? Do I have the answer? No. I’m willing to navigate and work through that process with the economic development committee. I think it’s something that we should definitely be looking at.
Zakrzewski: We’ve got too many abandoned buildings. Meriden, I’ve always said it, if you look at our location, we are right in the middle of Connecticut. We have highways that go north and south, east and west, right through our town. We should be thriving economically. If we have a person who’s attracting businesses, we want to attract them, we want to retain them, and we want to provide good jobs for our residents. It’s more than just a tax base coming in, you got to realize these people are going to buy lunch when they’re working, they’re gonna employ Meriden residents. They’re gonna make this place thrive. That’s what we want. If we’re to make Meriden thrive again, it’s not an easy task and definitely multi-generational in terms of how you have to change the perception of this town. … It’s research on who’s looking to move, we provide them with specifics, we let them know this is gonna be a safe town. It’s easily accessible. We may have to provide some tax incentives. We’re gonna have to work with businesses. Meriden has developed a bit of a persona of being not friendly to businesses.
Q: What kind of experience do you bring to the table as a city councilor for Area 3?
Blake: I always encourage constituents to reach out to me, whether it is a car break-in, whether it’s blight, whether it’s sidewalks, a streetlight, anything like that, illegal dumping. Because those are the things, like we can’t be all over our areas, so if I don’t know about it, I don’t know. I have no issues calling anyone and just having a conversation, and if I don’t know something or I don’t know the answer, I have no problem reaching out to figure out who can help us with it. How do I tackle it, how do I get them the correct response? That’s a big thing, the communication piece of it and being available to constituents. … You are supposed to be serving your community, communication is key all around.
Zakrzewski: I know a lot of people from my career and my whole life here. I’ve said, you vote for who’s gonna take care of you and who’s gonna be able to curb some of the spending, some the craziness that goes on in City Hall … I’ve got a master’s in public administration, which gives you a broad range of everything. You’ve learned finance, you’ve learned communication, you learn everything you need to learn, which are things that I’ve always done as a police officer. So I not only have the formal education, I also have the practical education. I’m the guy who buys all the cruisers, buys, all the stuff, all of those things. I know how to finance. I know how to save money or where you can save money.
Q: Anything else you wish to tell the voters, about yourself or your platform?
Blake: I just want to get new businesses in here. I’m finding more and more interest in it, and I think it’s, that’s because of the people reaching out to me. They’ve kind of almost made me be like, ‘let me kind of help you and guide you through this and get you going here Meriden,’ and then we can all benefit from it. I love human services … I will continue to always push and be a proponent for all aspects of our public safety, and education here in our city.
Zakrzewski: My platform is simple — working for the citizens. Like I said, just making sure that their voices are heard, and doing your very best. I’ll reiterate, I worked with everyone in the police department, it didn’t matter where we went we had to work as a team. I believe City Council should be working as a team. It shouldn’t be one faction versus another. If a counselor on either side comes up with a good, a great idea, that should be supported. That’s me. I’m gonna work with everybody. I did it as an officer and I’ll do it as a councilor.