Bristol Borough Mayor Ralph DiGuiseppe III made his first public comments about his election loss and said his remaining months in office will be used to finish important projects, namely the new firehouse.
DiGuiseppe III was defeated by former police chief and district judge Frank W. Peranteau Sr. in the May Democratic Primary. The run up to election day was spirited for the hotly contested position, that included plenty of back room drama, coming from both camps in the weeks leading up to the municipal primary.
DiGuiseppe III, son of the current council president, served on the Bristol Borough School Board. He resigned from that position early in his second term, as new leadership was elected to lead the board that year. He was appointed Mayor by council in August of 2022, after Joe Saxton died after a long battle with cancer.
The outgoing mayor said he was truly grateful for the opportunity to serve the community in the role of lead goodwill ambassador for the borough.
Being the mayor of Bristol Borough is not something in my high school yearbook. It wasn’t something that I always aspired to be, but it was a way for me to just give back to the community,” DiGuiseppe said.
Prior to the election a marketing firm reached out to Lower Bucks Source pitching a story idea for a story on Radcliffe Court on the Delaware. The publication made it clear, because DiGuiseppe III was offered to be interviewed for the story, Lower Bucks Source would have to ask the mayor if he, himself, is an investor or had any financial connections to the project. Eventually the strategic communications company doing the reach out to local and regional media, “decided to go in another direction” due to the publication’s insistence of having the opportunity to ask that question with follow ups if needed.
DiGuiseppe said he will be working real hard to get the firehouse project from the design stage to launch stage with his remainder of term.
“I still have six months to go, and I’m going to go out with a bang because I have a lot of initiatives that I want to finish up, like the firehouse,” he stated.
80 percent of the design and concept for the new fire station is completed, DiGuiseppe said, and he hopes to move the project forward by the end of summer to finalize the design and location.