FALL RIVER — When asked what the biggest obstacles are for new businesses coming to Fall River, mayoral candidate Kyle Riley had a whole list.
He mentioned the city’s aging housing stock and the number of blighted properties around Fall River. He also referred to the instability of trying to carry out longterm economic goals when the city has gone through three mayors in the last five years.
However, he said, the biggest challenges are public safety and public schools.
“I think there are a lot of steps we need to take before we can become inviting to companies,” he said.
Riley suggested that channeling more money into the city’s police and school departments could help with the issue, though he noted that the school district may have to re-evaluate how money is being spent.
“It appears to me that over the last three years we’ve spent more money on educational attainment but our test scores aren’t going the right way,” he said. “There’s a disconnect there.”
As far as Mayor Jasiel Correia’s ability to promote economic development in Fall River, Riley said his performance has varied during his tenure.
“I think it’s been more of any given week being a different grade,” he said. “When it comes to the election, we’re hearing a lot more about economic development. We can’t do economic development just in election cycles.”
Looking at Correia’s work overall, Riley assigned a letter grade of “C.”
“Small businesses still opening and ribbon-cutting still happening. There’s some good potential and some good stuff happening,” he said. “On the other side of it, I really do feel like we’re missing the boat on a couple of issues.”
The main issue, as Riley sees it, is an inability to follow longterm development goals even though the city has already invested in 10-year plans to promote economic development growth. Instead of following these plans, Riley said, Correia seems more apt to base his decisions on whatever is happening in the city at that moment.
“I think the process we’ve gone through at this point is, we see which way the wind is blowing,” he said.
Riley was also critical of the mayor’s decision to sever ties with the Fall River Office of Economic Development, also known as FROED, which, until 2017, had worked out of Government Center for decades.
However, when asked if he would undo the mayor’s decision to oust FROED, Riley said he has yet to make a decision.
“They have been working well with the city under several different administrations. You take that all into account. Of course, the players have changed a little bit,” he said. “It’s really about assessing who they are now, what the new group is, and what that looks like.”
Another area in which Riley said he would distance himself from Correia would be involving more of the city’s economic stakeholders in planning Fall River’s growth. He suggested building a task force of elected officials, city employees, business owners, and representatives of city neighborhoods to tackle the problem, as well as developing economic development plans specific to each of Fall River’s neighborhoods.
Email Peter Jasinski at pjasinski@heraldnews.com.