Candidates describe what they love — and would love to change — about Bristol

For their final test prior to Election Day, the eight candidates for Bristol Town Council were asked two seemingly easy questions: What is one thing you love about Bristol? What is one thing you would love to change about Bristol? The former elicited some consistent answers about the people living here and the type of community in this community. The latter sparked more diversity in the responses, with subjects ranging from traffic and downtown vibrancy, to public discourse and public education.

Here’s what the eight had to say …

Timothy Sweeney (D)

Mr. Sweeney said he loves how this community continues to make progress by working together. “I love how we find solutions, together,” he said. “Our community always seems to have a solution when it comes to solving problems.”

As an example, he talked about the town’s marina expansion project in Bristol Harbor. “When you consider the amount of time we’ve spent on that project,” he said. “We incorporated Roger Williams University students and faculty, we brought the community in, we brought boards and commissions in … it was really an all-inclusive project … And maybe it takes longer this way, but when we make a decision, it’s the right one.”

Mr. Sweeney is very environmentally conscious, so his suggestion for change is focused in that same area.

“I would love to create a composting service in town,” he said. Mr. Sweeney described a municipal-scale digester that would accept the town’s biodegradable waste. The benefits would be felt at many levels, from lower trash-hauling costs for the town, to a healthier world for everyone.

“We think we could divert about 40 percent of our waste into composting,” he said. More composting means less waste being converted into methane gases, which means less impact on weather and climate change.

“Yes, CO2 emissions in cars is getting better, but if we really want to impact our environment, we can compost more and reduce our methane gases,” he said.

Bethany Sousa Foster (D)

Ms. Foster tossed out a few ideas for why she loves Bristol, but they all boil down to one concept — it’s home.

“I left Bristol for college and stayed up in the Boston area after college, and after about four years of living there as an adult, I was like, I need to come home. Bristol has always been home to me,” she said.

“It’s also one of the most beautiful spots you could ever live. Every day I can take a walk somewhere new and find something beautiful … I still today love walking and finding new places, checking out spots I still haven’t seen.”

As for what she would change, it all came down to one concept as well — traffic. “Sometimes it takes so long to get to the highway,” she said. “It’s just the way Routes 114 and 136 are structured … sometimes it just takes forever. It’s that period between 3 and 6 o’clock when you feel like you can’t get anywhere.”

She added that her feelings about traffic congestion would not just elicit frustration — “It would absolutely factor in to how I make decisions as a town councilor, when considering zoning changes or business licenses or anything that could impact traffic, especially along the Metacom corridor,” she said.

Mary Parella (R)

Ms. Parella talked about the people of Bristol, but particularly their resiliency during this pandemic. “I’ve been so delighted and proud of the ingenuity and dedication of people to figure out ways to keep their businesses and cultural/community traditions alive during the pandemic,” she said. She mentioned the town’s outdoor dining efforts, the abbreviated and altered Fourth of July celebration, Italian and Portuguese and volunteer fire department feasts all adapting to become drive-thru events, as examples of innovation to carry on traditions. “I love that we’ve been able to support and participate in many annual traditions. In true Bristol fashion, people have risen to the occasion to overcome challenges,” she said.

As for what she would love to change, Ms. Parella returned to a subject she’s spoken about several times recently.

“I’d like to reduce the increasingly vitriolic comments we’ve seen for months in the local paper,” she said. “The vilification of people and name-calling is not Bristol. There is no need for people to be on such extreme sides of an issue in this community.”

She encourages people to bring their complaints and frustrations to the local government, before venting publicly. “We all want to live in a community that is inclusive and welcoming, and for the most part, that is what Bristol is. For people who don’t feel this is the case, they need to bring their concerns to the attention of the Town Administrator or Town Council so the issues can be addressed before people are so frustrated they feel they need a political movement to address it and feel that name-calling and intimidation are the best ways to get results. They aren’t.”

Michael Byrnes (I)

Mr. Byrnes grew up in Bristol and was Patriotic Speaker at the Fourth of July celebration in 2000. Remembering that time, he said, “The whole theme of my speech was that Bristol is a great place for its natural beauty, it’s a great place for its history and culture … but most importantly Bristol was a community in the truest sense of the word. It is a great place to grow up. People know each other. They work together, they support each other, they have similar hopes and dreams.”

Reflecting on the Bristol he lives in today, he said, “It’s lost a little of that recently, but this is still a community, and it’s still something to be very proud of.”

Responding to the question about what he would love to change, Mr. Byrnes turned to education.

“I’d love to see an education shift that focuses more on the non-college-bound, on the trades, on tying together Bristol’s industries, particularly the marine trades and engineering firms, with the students.”

He talked about the many successful businesses in Bristol that are doing cutting-edge work in composites, technology and engineering, and how they are providing good jobs with very competitive salaries. “I would like to see a much better connection between vocational education and our local businesses, making it a pipeline into our local manufacturing sector,” he said.

Adam Ramos (D)

Mr. Ramos spoke of an intangible but powerful trait. “It’s the community spirit,” he said. “It’s easy to point to the most shiny examples of community spirit, around the Fourth of July and the Grand Illumination and Snowflake Raffle and things like that, but beyond all that, Bristol has a real feel of a quintessential New England town, where all of the community can come together, and does come together, and feels a great sense of pride in who it is and what it does, in the character of the town, and its history and its people.”

He continued, “When I moved to Bristol and really started embedding myself in this town … I really thought I was embedding myself in one of the novels I read in college in English classes. This town has a real storybook feeling.”

Mr. Ramos prefaced his comments about what he would love to change by saying that he does not want to suggest that Bristol needs “fixing.” Rather, he sees an opportunity to make something better.

“It’s connecting the full town of Bristol more completely into that storybook community, and that takes a lot of forms,” he said. The essence of his suggestion is connecting the people and neighborhoods and pockets of the town so they feel more a part of one big community. He mentioned connecting the Metacom corridor with the downtown district. That might include transportation infrastructure, an expanded bike path and more walkable streets.

“There are a million little ideas to create more unity in town,” Mr. Ramos said. “It could mean having an in-town trolley, making certain parts of the town more walkable. One thing you notice, when you’re out on the campaign trail, is that Bristol is big. It’s a big little town. There are parts of the town that are a little disconnected, and I would love to get everything more connected in a lot of ways.”

Nathan Calouro (D)

Asked what he loves about Bristol, Mr. Calouro said, “That’s an easy one. Friends, family and the people of Bristol. The geography, the history, the buildings are all beautiful, but it’s all second fiddle to the people who live here.”

Asked what he would love to change about Bristol, Mr. Calouro got right to the point. “We need to work with state officials to get more state aid for our school system,” he said. “The change in the state funding formula was hurtful to the people of Bristol, and then subsequently to the people of Warren … We need to work with our representatives and our senators and find a way to get additional funds for our schools. The school budget represents more than 50 percent of our total budget, so it has massive impact, and because we’re talking about education, it is massively important.”

Antonio “Tony” Teixeira (I)

Mr. Teixeira said, “One thing that I love most about Bristol – the patriotic and volunteer spirit shown by its residents. The proximity to the water and the beauty of the harbor. All the resources that are available for the residents and its visitors.”

He concluded, “It’s very difficult to pick one thing.”

One thing that he would love to change about Bristol? “Nothing, just move it closer to I-195,” he said.

Aaron Ley (D)

Mr. Ley said he and his wife had the choice of living numerous places when they moved from the Midwest to Rhode Island so he could accept a job at the University of Rhode Island. “When we chose Bristol, I knew we had hit the jackpot,” he said.

“We looked at a lot of places, but this was it for us. Part of it is the community. It’s not just parks, and an awesome downtown, and the historic nature … but the community feel, for raising a family, is the most important thing.”

Mr. Ley defined how that “community feel” takes form — in the senior center’s “Adopt-a-Senior” program where volunteers are going out to visit and support the elderly; in the Friday Night Lights program begun by a Bristolian; in a massive toy drive coordinated every year by Jen Mancieri and a legion of friends. “Those are the types of things that make me take notice of why I love living here. Those kinds of things are kind of a shot in the arm.”

One thing he’d like to change is the vibrancy of the downtown district.

“One reason we chose Bristol over a place like Barrington or Rehoboth or Attleboro, is because of the downtown,” he said.

“But we’ve seen that when stress occurs to our economy, we see it losing some of that vibrancy in the downtown area.”

Mr. Ley wants Bristol to study other communities, with their own historic downtowns, to see what has worked well, in terms of economic development, visibility and vibrancy.

“It’s ok to take best practices, to take a model that has worked someplace else, and bring it over here and shape it in a Bristol way,” he said.