Aurora mayoral candidates focus on downtown during debate

Jack McCarthy for Chronicle Media

Rick Guzman

The glittering Paramount Theater seemed an appropriate venue for Aurora mayoral candidates Rick Guzman and Richard Irvin as they offered their visions for the surrounding downtown area during a mayoral debate last week.

The old-style movie palace, revived as a center for musical theater and other performances, is an emblem of the turnaround for a onetime decaying and declining city center.

Both candidates answered audience questions and occasionally sparred politely during a 90-minute session on the Paramount stage with a backdrop of scenery for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” Paramount’s latest musical offering.

“I hope that being on the set of ‘Sweeney Todd’ is not an indication of the cutthroat politics that we have seen at the national level,” Rick Guzman, an Aurora assistant chief of staff, joked. “We’ve had a good campaign so far.”

Richard Irvin

As the candidates answered questions they were largely in agreement on the focus and future of downtown, a main economic and cultural driver and crossroads for the city and the region.

But they also talked broadly the city, it’s future and qualities and qualifications each could bring to the position.

“I know where we’ve been in Aurora,” said Irvin, an at-large Aurora alderman. “I was here when we had almost 30 murders (and) had boots on the ground to help stop crime. I was here on the City Council when we had the Great Recession and we had to figure out how we were going to provide services to our citizens without raising taxes.

“Now I want to make Aurora better.”

Guzman, who was raised in Naperville but spent plenty of time here, said he and his wife made a deliberate choice to live in Aurora.

Guzman, Irvin focus on downtown at debate

“I have been going to church in Aurora my entire life,” he said. “I always say that you don’t choose where you’re born and raised, but you do choose where you want to raise your family,” he said.

Last Tuesday’s debate was the latest meeting of candidates in the run up to the April 4 election for mayor and city council.

It was sponsored by Aurora Downtown — an association of businesses and property owners —  and focused on the city center, which straddles the Fox River and includes an array of historic buildings, many restored and others in the process of rehabilitation.

In another era, downtown Aurora was a thriving retail center. Today it includes a new Waubonsee College campus, RiverEdge Park, a recently rehabilitated hotel, a new library, Hollywood Casino, a restaurant row and even residential space — all emerging in the last quarter century.

Both candidates agreed that more residential development downtown to create a critical mass of residents  that could support more downtown shops and services.

Next month’s winner will succeed acting Mayor Bob O’Conner, an at-large alderman who took over after Mayor Tom Weisner announced last year that he would step down early due to health concerns.