Former Port Jervis Fire chief and career firefighter Dominic Cicalese is running for mayor to take city services and infrastructure to the next level.
“I think we are in a good position now, but we can be better,” Mr. Cicalese told The Epoch Times. “We should never stop progressing forward, and that’s always one of my core beliefs.”
He said he wants to improve senior services, youth recreational opportunities, and veteran resources, all while being responsible with taxpayer money and using grants wherever available.
He also said he wants to support the expensive state-mandated sewer realignment project, which he said is necessary and should be done efficiently and responsibly.
“The [sewer fee] increase we had last year was significant, and it is a concern of taxpayers,” he said, adding that he would have his finger on the pulse of the project, if elected, to get it to the finish line without new fee raises.
He was endorsed by the Port Jervis Republican Committee and faces Democratic candidate Elizabeth Miller in the mayoral race.
A Career in Fire Service
Born in Queens, Mr. Cicalese moved to Port Jervis in 1984 as a young child after his father became the city’s postmaster, a post he held for about 20 years.
His father also worked as a volunteer firefighter, moving up the ranks to assistant fire chief and then fire chief. He often took young Mr. Cicalese to firehouses and occasionally on fire calls.
“They gave up weekends, they gave up nights, and they’d been through the worst: snowstorms, hurricanes, and flooding—these people gave selfless service to the city for nothing,” he said. “I was always in awe, and, to me, it was the only thing in life that I wanted to do.”
Mr. Cicalese followed in his father’s footsteps to become a volunteer firefighter with the city two decades ago and, luckily, as he put it, became a career firefighter in Middletown about 11 years later.
“A lot of people would love to do this for a living, but they never got the opportunity,” he said.
In 2012, Mr. Cicalese became assistant fire chief in Port Jervis and, six years later, the fire chief, a post that gave him a seat at the table of city operations.
“I was going to department head meetings, I was working with the clerk’s office, I was going through the city budgeting process, and I was working with the community development agency on securing grants,” he said, adding that those experiences would come in handy should he be elected mayor.
He said the fire chief post also trained him to deal with outside pressures on city operations, such as unfunded mandates from Albany and sudden policy changes by insurance carriers.
“The state would constantly put all these new restrictions and laws, and they wouldn’t pay for none of it,” he said. “Every year, we were constantly evolving and adapting to the changing world.”
What’s more, he said the fire service experience allowed him to meet regular people on their worst days and cultivated in him an ability to comfort people in times of need.
“Being the fire chief really put me on the front line of understanding and being compassionate,” he said, adding that the mentality would help him serve city residents in a mayoral role.
Mr. Cicalese has also served on the planning board since 2016, which he said gave him a window into projects—big and small—that would shape the city’s future.
Campaign Platform
He said his mayoral campaign, in a way, was about building on past improvements to deliver more services to three key groups of residents: young people, old people, and veterans.For the youth, he said he wants new playgrounds, new parks, and a more spacious youth community center. For seniors, he said he wants a new senior center and an expanded dial-a-bus service. For veterans, he said he wants to help them with housing to avoid homelessness.
“I’m running to give my children and everyone else’s children a town where, after high school or college, they want to come back and raise a family,” Mr. Cicalese said.
He said he mostly looked to federal and state grants to get the ball rolling on new initiatives.
Mr. Cicalese, who holds state certifications in building and fire inspections, said that another major area to improve is city code enforcement, especially when it comes to multi-family dwellings.
“Code violations are a quality-of-life issue. They affect neighborhoods and businesses,” he said. “If you take care of the small problems, then it will hopefully curtail the bigger problems down the road.”
One bigger problem in the city is drugs, and Mr. Cicalese said that although prevention services help, enforcement should come first for the city to get a handle on the problem.
As for property taxes, he said he would do his best to hold the line on any increases, even as local municipalities such as Port Jervis face increasing pressure from the state and other outside entities.
“Tax talk is difficult simply because you don’t control what Albany sends,” he said. “We need to hold firm and be responsible with any increases.”
One way to hedge against uncertainties is economic development, and Mr. Cicalese said he wanted to see a broader area of the city getting developed, not just the downtown.
“Our Front Street looks great, and there has been a lot of money pouring in,“ he said. ”But I believe it is also time for us to spread it down to Jersey Avenue, Pike Street, and the Tri-State corridor.”
