Diodati and Rodrigues Vie to Be New Haverhill City Council Face of Ward 2

Daniel R. Diodati, a fourth generation Hillie, is competing with Veronica A. Rodriguez, also a Haverhill native, to represent Ward 2 on the Haverhill City Council in January. The winner replaces Katrina Hobbs Everett who chose not to run again.

Diodati manages Berkshire Hathaway real estate offices in Haverhill. Rodriquez works for the Lawrence office of the state Department of Children and Families. Each recently appeared on WHAV’s morning show and answered six questions on challenging issues in the city. Here are their answers in the order their names appear on the ballot.

Why do you want to serve on City Council?

“With the skills that I have I really feel like I can contribute and I thought it was time to throw my hat in the ring. The reason is civic engagement being so low, it was time for someone like myself to step up and try to make a difference.” Diodati said.

“I love Haverhill first of all and, lately, it’s been in the news for some of the wrong things. I don’t think you can complain if you don’t try to make a difference so that’s why I want to serve,” Rodriguez said.

There is a perception Haverhill is building too much housing. Do you agree?

“I do think there could be a smarter way to develop residential housing if we really look at homeownership. Homeownership is super, super important in any community,” Diodati said.

“I think that we should fix the places that we have that are abandoned first. I think we need to get more creative because all that housing is going to bring a lot traffic, it is going to bring other problems. So, we need to maybe think outside of the box to help because we do have a housing crisis,” Rodriguez said.

What can the City Council do to promote more affordable housing?

“Between homeownership, development of new construction that is based on owner-occupied projects, mixed in with ADU (accessory dwelling unit) use, I think it is a great start. And, things are in motion to do that. I just hope to simplify things and make it a little bit better,” Diodati said.

“We do have a housing trust but there’s no money in it. I think maybe if some of these new developments, we should maybe make them pay into that so we do have some funds so we can think of some projects we can do for affordable housing,” Rodriguez said.

The death of Francis P. Gigliotti II while in police custody and the death of Officer Katelyn M. Tully have left the public looking for answers, especially in light of changes at the top of the police department. Do you think the public has the right to know more and how quickly and what types of information do you think is properly withheld?

“Just to have a little bit more transparency in the process and how it is messaged to the public whether it be through an actually press conference, not necessarily through just making social media posts, etc. If there is no news to report, then report that there is no news to report,” Diodati said.

“I think they did a good job informing the public. They put it out there right away. I do think that out of respect for her family, the cause of death and those types of things should be kept private just out of respect. I think they should be transparent. The public is what put them in. We pay for their jobs so we definitely need to know what’s going on. We need to know,” Rodriguez said.

Do you believe residential property taxes are too low, too high or about right?

“Too high. Because mindset is everything to me. And I do think we act upon on our thoughts. As long as we are controlling in our head that taxes are too high, we are going to work to keep them as low as possible,” Diodati said.

“When I am paying them, I think they are too high but when I compare them to other cities, they’re not so high.” Rodriguez said.

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