Westbrook residents supported incumbents at the polls Tuesday, re-electing Mayor Bruce Chuluda to a third term, along with Councilors Brendan Rielly, Drew Gattine and Michael Foley, all of whom faced opponents.

While the candidates were happy to be re-elected, some of them seemed to be dreading another two years of serving on a city council that does not have a particularly good working relationship with the executive branch.

That working relationship has been particularly stressed in the weeks leading up to the election, as Democrats complained about communication from City Hall and pushed hard for more oversight of city finances at a recent committee meeting.

The frustration among some Democrats was palpable Tuesday night, after they learned they would be working with the same mayor for another two years.

Incumbent Democrat Suzanne Joyce, who faced no opponent in Ward 5, said she expected the next two years to be “very” difficult. “It’s going to be an uphill battle, as usual,” said Joyce.

Council President Brendan Rielly said he was “very” disappointed with the results of the mayoral race and said he hoped communication between the council and mayor would improve.

Despite what some councilors might have wanted, Democratic mayoral candidate Jim Violette put it best and most succinctly: “The voters spoke.” The message was clear: This city wants this mayor and city council to work together.

That’s not going to happen until some of these elected officials step back, take a deep breath, set aside their personal and political differences and truly try to see the other side. They might find their positions and goals are not all that dissimilar. They all believe in this city and want to make it better. They want good schools, safe streets, low taxes and more business.

In the last few years, the city has done a good job of keeping taxes down and attracting new businesses, and all of these officials deserve some of the credit and some of the blame for any missteps that have been made along the way. With that as a backdrop, to a neutral observer, the fever pitch the political rhetoric sometimes reaches in this city, particularly in the last month, seems unwarranted.

The complaint of poor communication is not a new one in Westbrook. It is frequently sounded by councilors not close to the mayor in power. Chuluda himself complained about it when he was a city councilor and Democrat Don Esty was mayor. That situation would seemingly lend some perspective to the one this council now faces.

Chuluda and Rielly were both in office at that time. Yet, that memory has not bettered the current relationship between the mayor and city councilors. If anything, it has gotten worse.

Brendan Moran, editor