STEVE OROSCO Returns After Another Violent Weekend

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Steve Orosco, Welcome back to the show. The opponent in
the mayoral race in New Haven? How are you today,
see my man.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Vinnie Penn, how are you doing today.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm glad to have you on. I'm glad. I'm glad
you threw your hat in this ring so much. I
said what I said right there about the early voting,
because like, what if people voted last week or the
week before, if my mind is made up, you know,
this weekend an eighteen year old lost their life downtown
New Haven on a Halloween night, everybody in costume is

(00:32):
supposed to be a fun night. Maybe they changed their mind.
Now that's why I'm against early voting. Maybe you know
that happening a few days before an election. Some people
now might be like, you know what, we do need
change around here. There's a lot of young people being
killed in New Haven these days. And I wonder if
that crossed your mind at all.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, it definitely does. And I guess to play
Devil's advocate where I will say is I also feel
as though the people who are voting early, I don't
think you can change their minds. Like those are the
people that are just anti the other side. So they're
going because they want to make a statement now. So
I don't know if that would have changed their minds.
Should but I do think but it absolutely should. And

(01:15):
I think it's the major issue. And the bigger issue
with that is, you know, Mayor Elker has even made
a statement, hasn't done a press conference over it. Instead,
he yesterday he did a whole thing at his campaign
headquarters and had every single person from the state there,
from the governor, Governor Lamont to Center of Blumenthal to
Martin Looney because they're scared they know that Elker he

(01:38):
might lose this election.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, that's the only reason that he did my show
is he is, I believe, I hadn't been on in years,
made himself completely available to me. I don't know if
you bothered listening to that interview.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
But they're actually sure it is.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I think a lot of people should listen to that
because there's a lot of really telling stuff there, you know,
even here because he said that we don't use the
word gang anymore, we don't talk gang violence anymore. Sometimes
it's just, you know, one guy's got a beef with
another guy, yes, because they're both in a pope. Because

(02:11):
they're both in opposing gangs, and I believe that that
was potentially the case here this past Friday night. Of
Friday night where my son was, my son was one
block over from this. I'm done with this, Steve, I'm
done with it. Yeah. Yeah, even my son, real quick, Steve,
Even my son who loves new Haven and he's finally

(02:34):
admitted to being's it's scary down there. He sent me
a few Onseen media clips over the weekend, which is
really they capture some dumbfounding footage of new Haven if
people want to check out that page, and he's like,
this is what I see every day. He uses it
as a shot against me. It's like, thanks, thanks for

(02:55):
that wonderful college education you saved up for this is
what I'm contending with on a daily basis. And the
kid is scared, and I don't blame him.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I don't blame them either.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
A lot of people won't go downtown anymore simply for
that reason, because crime has been elevated. And listen, you
know there's that one video, the ONTI media poster with
a long line that you know I got them that night,
and in that video, you don't see you don't see
a single police officer because there's so short staffed. To me,
that alone is crazy and I'm not you know. Some

(03:26):
people want to say I'm going to blame the club,
but for me as the mayor, it's you have to
have a full police force. If you know there was
a shooting there and you know there's gonna be thousands
of people, you need to have more police in that
area and have presence so nothing happens in the first place.
You know that the whole Let's put five hundred surveillance
cameras around the city to deter crime is not going

(03:47):
to deter crime, especially violent crimes. You have to have
police officers.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, you know you. I want to make sure that
this interview goes goes well because this is the most
important race in New Haven and I don't know how
long and I believe so. I believe so. And history
can't be made here and needs to be made here,
and it's the city I'm born and raised in my

(04:13):
kids down there. I finally got one. She's done with it,
and it's too bad because she loves it too, but
she just doesn't feel safe there. She'd rather bounce around
the suburbs but what you just said right there, and
I don't want to rope you in, So don't say anything, Steve,
because I've got another question for you that I'll get
to afterwards. But when you said, did you see that line?
And I did. My son sent me that clip and

(04:37):
the fact that there was no police nothing, There wasn't
a squad car, and say, I've torn that street up.
I tore that street up for three decades and there
was nothing but cops walking the beat squad cars. It
was full of it. I'm running out of gas, on Jacobson.

(04:57):
And that's why I said, I don't want to rope
you in on that. I am running out out of
a little bit of gas as far as Jacobson is concerned,
because a good chief of police would have made sure
on Halloween that area where guns were blazed in a
month ago. Hey let's make sure we got presents on
that block. But like I said, I want to rope
you in on that. You'll contend with him when you

(05:19):
get in there. Here's what I want to ask you.
You post something on your page yesterday about this, and
I see four hundred and seventy three comments on there.
I spent the day on your page yesterdays and out
of four hundred and seventy three comments I saw, I'd

(05:43):
say somewhere between three hundred and four hundred idiots just dummies,
Like one lady is like, where do you stand on Trump?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
What?

Speaker 1 (05:56):
What does that even?

Speaker 2 (05:58):
After?

Speaker 1 (05:58):
What does that have to it devolved for a good
long while by well, I need to know first if
before I vote for you, do you use and God
bless you, my man, you to tell you wrote that,
lady a paragraph? You were you were, Yeah, you were
replying to everybody, which I.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Try to do my best, you know, even so not
to go go to another direction. But I give it.
I get so many messages on Instagram and Facebook and
I actually take the time and I send an audio
message back. I call it digital door knocking because I
can't get to everyone, and people really appreciate that. But
I'm social with posts. I don't like commenting too much
because if someone disagrees with you and you argue back

(06:41):
and forth, you're never going to change someone's mind on
social media. But something like that, when it's Trump, that's
the only one that kind of gets under my skin
because what does Trump have to do with be Haven?
Why aren't you using that same passion energy against the
people actually failing you in this city? And that's what
I wish people would do, because if I lived in
like I said, if I live in Obama and everyone's

(07:01):
been both Republican since the fifties, and the conditions ROI behave,
and I would tell everyone to vote Democrat and get
rid of these Republicans and then make Republicans work for
you in the next election. To me, that's common sense. Yeah,
but people are still beholden to their party now, sometimes
on both sides. I think that's the problem, one of
the biggest issues in our country. We need a complete

(07:22):
reset in New Haven. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Look, I mean if I look, if this was a
Republican mayor in the city where I was born and raised,
I'd be calling him a flop after these six years
of flop. I actually thought about this as it pertains
to me and you and again rom with Steve Rossco
who's on both the Republican and independent line tomorrow in
the election for those of you in New Haven, please

(07:46):
get out, please vote. I thought about our relationship being
in danger because you know, you've run a couple of
you took on lun you know, I've known you for
a while now I consider you a friend. And if
you win this thing, and I want you to win
this thing, I'm gonna I would call you out a
year from now if this city was still crappy, is

(08:09):
all get out and not getting any better, I'd be
saying on the air, what happened to that change? We
were pretty You know. I think that way because I'm
not looking in the parentheses next to a person's name.
I'm looking at the record. I'm looking at what's happening.
I'm looking at a dead eighteen year old, and it's
the latest in a long line in twenty twenty five,
and I don't want to hear from Elacar that well

(08:32):
the line was longer though last year. I don't care.
I don't care the direction it's heading. It. We got
a dead eighteen year old, So you know I would
be calling you out too with you know, a year
or two from now if things don't get better, you know, Yeah,
And well.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
I also to your point. I think one of the
biggest issues of politicians as a whole is they don't
show humility, so if something does happen, they never get
on the stage or on the microphone and say, listen,
this is the issue, this is where we are wrong,
but this is what we're going to do to rectify
the situation. Instead, they just doubled down on stupidity and deflection.

(09:11):
And I always said that was an issue on both
sides too, and I think American people are waiting for
a politician to show humility, show that you failed, admit
that you were wrong. But hey, what do you do
to change that? To the CEO of any company, when
he's in the room with the board of directors, he's
going to say, well, he get wrong.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, I agree, and I's.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Going to solve it.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah. I also saw today just to make sure we
hit a couple of different things and not just the
violence in the city this weekend. Even though one of
the other comments that I saw was you know, somebody
saying typical political move, you know, exploiting a tragedy to
promote No, that's exactly. How do you not point at

(09:54):
that and say, in three days there's an election, this
can end. I just thought that, But here's a combative,
argumentative person, And then that devolved into her going back
and forth with some guy. You may know what I'm
talking about you may not. And she's like, I was
born and raised in New Haven and we live in
such a weird age. You guys, like really cause you

(10:14):
went to North Haven High School. People get to look
into it and I'm like, this is not the point.
But I saw a story today in the New Haven
Independent about how the English station, you know, the city
keeps pitching that stupid pool plan, but the cleanup still stalled.

(10:35):
No traction as far as cleanup is concerned. And yet
we're still looking at this. What was the price tag
on this, this pool going, which is just going to
be an a place where there's more violence if it
comes to pass, it's just going to be a place
ultimately where there's more violence. What was the price tag
on it? Again though? Was it twenty? I feel like.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Million dollars? So whoever that number is at least double
or triple that. Yeah, went's all said and done, you know,
And the bigger issue with that whole situation is, you
know what's gonna happen. They're gonna get all this grant money,
They're gonna put a park there, and then they're gonna
run out of grant money. You know what's gonna happen
Yale's gonna come in buy the whole property for probably
a dollar, like you try to do everything else, and

(11:22):
then it's gonna take over the property. And that's how
they win every single time. Our mayor is just a
grant mayor. He doesn't know how to actually build an economy,
just gets grants, gets grants. All the grants dry up
over time, and these buildings closed and these programs closed,
and that has to stop. I'm so sick and tired
of kicking this can down the road, not saying, you

(11:42):
know something, let's just build the economy here so we
don't have to worry about grant. We don't need another park.
We have a wine Caa a mile down the road
into two miles away into why you could literally fund
the wine Caa and give free lessons twenty four hours
a day to everybody in New Haven for a fraction
of the cost of English Station. If you want to

(12:02):
talk about black and brown kids being able.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
To swim, well done. Plus, aren't people still saying there's
like six pools ultimately in New Haven and the all
I believe I heard all of them are presently closed
and not due to the season. They're in need of repair,
and like they're not usable.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Nope, they're not usable. Yeah, and they all need repair
along with all of our schools. We have about half
a billion dollars in repairs amongst all of our school facilities.
That's how much they deteriorated and how much they've let
them go over time.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, there's an art. Part of the article goes like this,
there's a couple who believe that when children have access
to a pool, they can learn life saving skills plus
broaden their career options. Evidently Baywatch fans. Nonetheless, the article continues,
and that's why they showed at a community meeting Wednesday

(12:58):
night where fifty neighbors contributed to the fifty that number
is meager. Where fifty neighbors contributed to the Eliker administration's
plans for building miver Mill excuse me, Mill River Park,
including this new public pool at the and they write

(13:19):
this with a straight face, at the site of the
highly contaminated former English Station power plant. And all I
was thinking was, if you put these fifty people who contributed,
if you show me a photo that five hundred people
are in and fifty of them are the people who contributed,
I could probably pick at least in the forties. I

(13:41):
could probably pick most of them out because they're oblivious,
guilt ridden for some reason. I don't know why. Elite
there people who have no real skin in the game.
They're do gooders who want to be able to lay
their heads on their pillow at night and feel like

(14:02):
they did did a good thing when they're just not
motivated by the right thing. And that frustrates me.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, me too. And even with that meeting, they really
closed it off. It was you know, normally those public
hearings are for everyone to have a voice and for
the people and you know that are making decisions to
answer questions. It wasn't like that they brought people in
in small little groups because they want to keep everybody
isolated because they know what they're doing is wrong. They

(14:30):
know it's not a good idea, but they're still going
to do it anyway, and we need to stop it.
And I become mayor is going to be stopped. There's
no way we're making that Apart a water park. There's
so much there's way too much potential there for other
areas of revenue streams that it's just I think it's
crazy that they want to put a water park there.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
This is what happens next.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
People that have never had skin in the game, have
never wrote a check in their life, making decisions for
the rest of the city.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Uh so, how does Steve Rosco spend the next twenty
four hours? Just how do you spend today? Tomorrow? Where
are you going to be at? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Man, I'll tell you what, Vinnie. This the pace that
I run on this campaign is like nothing I felt,
not fight camp, not grad school, not starting a business.
Because you're a challenger running in such a blue city,
you really have to It's not about just money. People say, oh,
raise money, raise money, Yeah, that's important, but it's really
about feet on the ground, is going grass groups, and

(15:30):
grassroots is walking these streets, walking these neighborhoods. And it's
been all day jobs. So today I'm spending half the
day actually fundraising for the final push. So we have
a war chest for today tomorrow with the text message
campaigning and for our staff, you know, so we can
bust people, et cetera. And then tomorrow is just to

(15:51):
be bopping around to different locations. Obviously, you know, I'm
gonna start at Ward eighteen Nathan Hale and just go
around and I believe we're going to end the night
at Armada Brewery for great spots when the election or not. Yees,
you got to keep it in New Haven and keep
it in fair Haven, and just I hope for the best.

(16:11):
I really do think that we have this. Otherwise they
wouldn't be it wouldn't be this scared if people don't
see the amount of messages that I get from people.
I mean Democrats. People have been voting Democrats the whole life.
And again I'm not saying the best candidate on the planet,
but I do see that. Like a lot of times,
people vote somebody out. It's kind of the perfect storm
where people are gravitating towards me. But people really want

(16:35):
to vote Elger out, pretty much like they did for Harp.
You know, they didn't vote Elker in, they voted Harp out.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
That's exactly right. And I was a part of that,
and I want to be a part of this