Pull quote “Not many 50-some-year-old men listen to hip-hop,” Lisa Chuluda, daughter of Mayor Bruce Chuluda
Editor’s note: This is the third in an occasional series of profiles spotlighting Westbrook politicians
Mayor Bruce Chuluda is a bit of an anomaly in Westbrook politics – a Republican who has beaten two prominent Democrats in a decidedly Democratic city.
Despite his success in politics, Chuluda said he doesn’t consider himself a “politician.” He said he’s no different from anybody else. He said he entered city politics because he cares about people and Westbrook and likes to help.
“I’m a regular guy,” he said. He doesn’t shave everyday and will “wear a crummy shirt” and isn’t always “on.” When people come up to him in the store and say, “Hi, mayor,” he said it’s “almost embarrassing.”
Formerly a lifelong Democrat, Chuluda said he became “disenchanted” with his party’s leadership in Westbrook and decided to run for the City Council as an independent. In 2002, he unseated Democrat Tim Driscoll who is now a state representative. In 2004, Chuluda ran as a Republican for mayor and unseated six-year incumbent Don Esty. In 2006, he won again for mayor against six-year City Council President Jim Violette.
Still, after all of those years in the public eye, Chuluda is still uncomfortable with attention. He said he’d rather work quietly in the background and stay out of the spotlight. His wife, Vickie Chuluda, said that’s just the type of guy he is.
“That bugs me sometimes when he does something great,” she said. “He’s a caring person. Everyone would like to do something good with their life. (Being mayor) is his way of doing something good with his life. I’m very proud of Bruce.”
When asked about his personalized license plate that reads “BRU CHU,” Chuluda said it’s not to get attention but so he can find his car in the parking lot.
A ‘Miami gangster’
According to John Dyhrberg, a friend of the Chuludas, the mayor “is a pragmatic, level-headed man who seems to be able to cut through the fat to get down to the real meat,” whether as mayor or as a member of a community group.
“There may not be a lot of flashiness to Bruce, but then he doesn’t rely upon flashiness to make his mark,” Dyhrberg said. “He (also) throws all his energy into whatever he does.”
Dyhrberg said Chuluda is a “great guy with a great sense of humor.” He said Chuluda has a dry wit, and once, on a trip to the Island of Nevis, he came down for dinner dressed in “a white suit, black shirt, white string tie, and a Panama hat, looking for all the world like a Miami gangster.”
His daughter, Lisa Chuluda, said her father is a straight-forward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy who tells it like it is. “But there are times he can clown around and be a goofball,” she said.
She said she’ll sometimes turn on the radio in the car and her father will sing along with her to the latest music, surprising her with his familiarity with new pop music. She said she thinks he secretly likes to listen to new music.
“Not many 50-some-year-old men listen to hip-hop,” she said.
She said he is a great father and she loves to hang out with him. They like to go, along with her friends, to hockey games together and then out for drinks afterwards. When she turned 21, her mother and father were the ones who took her down to the Old Port in Portland at the stroke of midnight so she could have her first legal drink.
Vickie Chuluda said her husband is an all-around nice guy and her best friend. “There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me,” she said. “He’s the type of guy who would bring me home a steak and bring himself home a hamburger.” She said he makes her tea and warms her pajamas up in the dryer at night for her.
She also said the washer and dryer are her husband’s favorite toys. “He loves to do laundry,” she said. Other than that, she said he likes to play golf. She said they play in the summer with other couples “and have a lot of fun.”
They don’t get to play as much these days because she’s been fighting lung cancer, but they still like to go for rides in the city together to check on things, she said. Neither she nor her husband like to make a big deal of her illness because they don’t want people to “feel sorry” for them.
He said they don’t go out as much anymore, but that he admires “the hell out of (his wife). She’s a strong lady.”
All business
Chuluda said he likes to watch Seinfeld and CSI on television but doesn’t watch a lot of television in general. He said he likes the Celtics and used to always go to the Boston Garden, and he likes the Red Sox and the Patriots.
But he said he doesn’t have a whole lot of time for “hanging out” in between work, the various community groups he’s involved in, and his mayoral duties. He used to be the chief operating officer for Westbrook Community Hospital but now works the night shift at L.L. Bean in customer service. He said he checks e-mail and meets with people during the day as mayor and then goes to work at L.L. Bean, catching a few hours of sleep at night and naps here and there when he can during the days.
As mayor, Chuluda’s style has been to cut the city’s budget and trim personnel wherever possible. These moves brought Chuluda into conflict with the City Council when he set his first budget two years ago. But he justifies his actions by saying he tries to run the city like a business, using his career in banking and administration to guide him.
“His approach to running the city is like running a company,” said his opponent in this year’s election, Jim Violette. “He’s very careful about what he spends. Bruce has done a good job as mayor. His way of management and leading is different. His philosophies are different from mine. That’s why I ran against him. They’re not right or wrong.”
Darryl Wright of the Westbrook chamber of commerce said he knows Chuluda both personally and professionally and feels he has laid out his goals and accomplished them. “When he says he’s going to do something, he does it,” he said.
“I’d like to see him out front on some issues, more of a cheerleader out front championing some issues,” said City Councilor Ed Symbol. Symbol said he feels Chuluda delegates too much to City Administrator Jerre Bryant and spends too much time behind the scenes.
City Councilor John O’Hara disagrees, saying he feels Chuluda stays behind the scenes when necessary and then is very open and out there when necessary.
As far as Chuluda being a politician or not, Symbol and Violette, believe he is. “He’s the mayor of the city,” said Violette. “Sometimes he has to make political decisions.”
Wright, a Republican, believes he isn’t. “He doesn’t care about the politics of it, just what’s best for the city,” he said.
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