On Thursday night, former Common Council member and City Clerk Helena Abrantes started her quest to become the Democratic nominee for mayor.

In a filled room at the Catholic War Veterans Building, highlighting what she views as a lack of vision, smart growth, and respect for community, Abrantes offered a detailed and at times stinging critique of Mayor Boughton and the current administration while offering a preview into her vision for Danbury.

Brief highlights from speech:

• Pledges to earn the support of Democrats in order to obtain the Democratic nomination.

• Vision for Danbury will center on public safety, financial security, education, respect for the makeup of the city, and respect for one another.

• Traffic and public safety are priorities that has been ignored due to what Abrantes views as uncontrolled growth that serves as further evidence that "there is a lack of vision, lack of plan and a lack of concern for the impact on our future..."

• Stated that one can not invite development, then point the finger to others once someone complains.

• Pledges to add more police officers in the first two years in office.

• Over bonding threatens the stable property tax base that was established by the previous administration.

• The City Center has been abandoned and hundreds of housing units is not the solution to downtown improvement.

• Open space must be preserved.

• If elected mayor, tax breaks to housing developers will come to an end and fairness to all housing owners will prevail.

• Emphasis will be placed in education.

Seeing its only Feburary, there's great deal of time until the Democratic Town Committee formally announce their nominees. The last mayoral election cycle gave us multiple Democrats seeking the nomination so I wouldn't be too surprised if other Democrats throw their hats into the race.

Abrantes has the name recognition having served as a Common Council member under two administrations as well as a City Clerk. Another asset for Abrantes is her active role within the Portuguese community which could help her cause in terms of votes.

In order to have any chance against Boughton, it's important for any challenger to carefully articulate their reasons for running as well as offer a set of goals that resonate with the public. The longer a person stays in office, the more one's political record becomes a factor in a re-election campaign. By seeking his forth term in office, the mayor record and approval will be play a large role in whether or not he'll get re-elected. Basically, it might come down to "do you like the way things are now" or "are you ready for a change" so the approval/disapproval could play a factor since people who disapprove ususally vote. If people are upset with his leadership, and Abrantes take advantage of that disapproval, this election WILL be competitive. If people are happy with the way things are, Abrantes has her work cut out for her.

As readers of this site recall, I commented several times in 2005 about the division within the Democratic Party and a Democratic mayoral candidate who simply didn't campaign hard enough for the top spot to threaten Boughton yet, the Democrats were able to pick up seats in the Common Council. If you look at the results from 2005, you'll notice that several Democrats lost their races by VERY small margins. If the party is unified, able to offer a realistic platform to the public, and campaigns extremely hard, they have a realistic chance in causing headaches for the Republican majority and give the Democrats more political leverage.

Now, if you said in Feburary 2006 that Chris Murphy would beat Nancy Johnson ON EVERY VOTING MACHINE IN DANBURY, or that a no name candiadte named Ned Lamont would beat Joe Lieberman in the primary, people would call you crazy and be concerned for your mental health. In other words, in my experience watching these elections, it's safe to say that anything can ANYTHING...remember, it's only Feburary.