Stamford Downtown Special Services District Celebrates 20 Years

On Monday night, the Stamford Downtown Special Services District celebrated 20 years of service, said goodbye to one leader and hello to a new one.

During the Property Owners' Annual Meeting dinner, held at the Stamford Marriott, Randall M. Salvatore was instated as the new chairman as Stephen J. Hoffman stepped down after six years at the helm of a group that carefully watches the interests and investments of Stamford's Downtown and constantly tries to bring new activities to the area.

Salvatore said he loved being a part of the organization.

"It's a great organization with a great history," Salvatore said. "It's created unbelievable success stories in Stamford, weathering both good and bad economies. It's heightened activity downtown, the efforts have brought in new people and businesses. It's created economic activity."

Despite his new title, Salvatore said the impact from his title change would be somewhat minimal. In essence, if it isn't broke, he wasn't going to try and fix it.

"There will be no wholesale changes. The organization is incredibly well run. There might be subtle shifts in the way we look at certain things, but essentially I'll just be guiding an already smooth-sailing ship," Salvatore said.

Mayor Michael Pavia was in attendance as well. He said he was excited to be a part of looking at such a rich and storied organization that has done so much good work for the city.

"This is a celebration of downtown," the mayor said. "It's a celebration of how Stamford looks and feels to its residents and its visitors. It's a celebration of how we accommodate those who travel along these city streets. When you look around at the visual aesthetics present in this city. That's what everyone is here celebrating."

During dinner, Hoffman, Pavia, and Salvatore all addressed the room full of diners, supports and stakeholders, as did DSSD Treasurer Kathy Emmett who provided the Treasurer's Report and Sandy Goldstein, DSSD President, who presented awards to NBCUniversal representatives for their continued support of DSSD endeavors (and for their 19,950 slices of pizza purchased over the last year) and Hoffman, for his years of service.

To wrap up the evening, just before dessert, George Strakosch and Michael "Motts" Pelazza, voice of Alive@Five, provided a sometimes-laugh-worthy, more-often-groan-worthy, roast-style comedic take on several members of the audience and Stamford-centric issues.

Most of his jokes had visual aids in the form of a PowerPoint playing behind him and accompanying piano music.

Some that received the most reaction from the audience included a photo of the mayor's face on one of the "Horsin' Around Downtown" horses,  a celebration of Connecticut's acceptance of all sexual orientations with a photo of "Spring Street" with a rainbow background underneath it and the claims that it now goes "both ways," and a picture of four people of Indian ethnicity on the screen while he sang a few bars of "Cold as Ice," in a thick Indian accent in a rib on the name of one of the main attractions of the Alive@Five concert series this summer, "Foreigner."