Succeeded by Joseph Ganim | Name Mary Moran | |
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Born August 1, 1933 (age 91) Bridgeport, Connecticut ( 1933-08-01 ) | ||
Mary Chapar Moran (born August 1, 1933) is a former mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Mayor of Bridgeport
Moran Chapar Moran was the first woman to service as Bridgeport mayor.
In 1977, Moran unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for city clerk.
In 1989, Moran–then "a self-described housewife and real-estate broker" without experience in public office—won the Republican nomination for mayor in an upset, narrowly defeating the party-endorsed candidate, former Leonard S. Paoletta, with 2,004 votes (50.4%) to Paoletta's 1,972 votes (49.6%). Moran proceeded to defeat two-term incumbent mayor Thomas W. Bucci. Moran was a Republican in a heavily Democratic city, yet won the election by 11 percentage points. Moran was sworn in at the Klein Memorial Auditorium on November 13, 1989. In 1988, the year prior to her election, the State of Connecticut had imposed a financial review board for the city.
In 1991, Moran became famous for filing a municipal bankruptcy petition for the city in U.S. bankruptcy court in an effort to avoid an 18 percent tax that the financial review board had proposed. The petition was unsuccessful; the bankruptcy court determined that Bridgeport was not insolvent.
Moran's move was deeply unpopular, even vilified. The filing "made Connecticut's largest city a symbol of the nation's urban struggles." In a 2012 op-ed, Moran defended the decision as the only way to address Bridgeport's steep structural budget deficits.
Moran lost the 1991 election to Joseph P. Ganim. Ganim received 15,768 votes (54%) compared to 10,951 for Moran and 2,258 for other candidates.