Mayor Joseph Solomon may have had a friendly demeanor during his visit to the Warwick Rotary Club’s weekly meeting at the Radisson Hotel on Thursday, his first such visit and guest appearance at the Rotary as the new head executive of the city, but don’t be mistaken – he was all business.

Solomon pointed out that he had friends and business associates at each and every table within the banquet room, which was full of local business owners, out of state visiting Rotarians and Rotary members – it was also Sarah Channing’s first time leading a meeting as the Rotary’s president.

“What makes a good community is the businesses,” Solomon said in his short speech. “The business owners in this community are the backbone of the community.”

Solomon recapped what led up to him becoming mayor, which was not something that Solomon expected at the time but has become an exciting, high-stakes game of discussing, learning and governing. However, this is not the first time he has had to rely on his gut and the people around him to deal with rapidly developing issues.

“As council president I was acting mayor night of Station Fire,” he recalled. “That was probably the most traumatic time of my elected office – when I was receiving those emergency calls as acting mayor and directing our public safety personnel to assist, as every other community did. Everyone came together for a very special reason and a special cause.”

He said that acting quickly in a crisis situation is one necessary ability to possess to be mayor, while another side of the coin is to be able to digest information, confer with the proper parties and make the best possible decision for as many people as possible.

One situation, when former finance director Bruce Keiser suddenly retired following Avedisian’s departure in mid-May, tested both of those approaches to governance.

“Two days after I assume the duties of mayor, as I was sworn in, I came into my office and saw a note that was left for me that the finance director that prepared the budget that was to heard the upcoming week decided he wanted to retire and go sailing,” Solomon said. “Thankfully, with the great staff that I have in place and with my accounting and business background, we were able to dive into the numbers that were there and analyze what was put together by the former finance director.”

Switching gears, Solomon stressed that it will be of the utmost importance to him to foster good communications between the city government, private businesses and public nonprofits.

“A better society is open communication between the businesses, the social services and the public sector. That’s what’s going to make this community go forward,” he said, noting that Colonel Stephen McCartney, chief of the Warwick Police Department, makes it a point to attend each Rotary meeting when possible and is actively engaged in working with the people of the community he polices.

Solomon was only asked a couple of questions following his speech, one of which was from a former city employee who asked about the status of the City Hall Annex building – which was damaged when a pipe burst in January and has yet to be remedied. Displaced city workers remain working in less than ideal conditions at the former Greene Elementary School on Draper Avenue.

“Unfortunately, the records necessary to make those decisions were not made available to me,” Solomon said of the claims process to assess how much money in insurance the city could get stemming from the damage to the building. “So I am getting information from the adjuster that was hired from the prior administration to reconstruct this file.”

Solomon said that he will only be able to take a next step once the damage is assessed to determine if the building is a total loss or only a partial loss, but that the issue is high on his priority list because it affects the morale and productivity of the city’s municipal workers.

“I can’t make a definitive answer, but I can tell you that I did take the bull by the horns as I would do if it was my own private property or any of you would do if it was your own private property. You wouldn’t just let it sit for three or four months unaddressed,” he said, taking a not-so-subtle jab at Avedisian. “I’m not going to do that.”

When asked what he hopes to accomplish in the next two years, should he be elected in November in what is gearing up to be a contested primary and mayoral election against Republican Sue Stenhouse (who was in the audience taking notes on Thursday), Solomon said that streamlining government was also a top priority.

“The secret to success in business is not how much money you spend, but how you spend your money,” he said. “If I can streamline government to make it more effective at a more efficient cost, ultimately that’s a saving of tax dollars.”

In how he hopes to run the government, Solomon – who touted himself as a businessman doing the job of mayor not for money, but for a love of the community – brought the topic back, once again, to business.

“I look at government as a break-even business, not as a for-profit business,” he said. “If you can operate government as a break-even business, I think you’re doing a good job. That’s what I want to do.”