Woodbridge Democratic Town Committee

The Democratic Ticket has a clean sweep in the 2009 Municipal elections in Woodbridge. We would like to thank everyone who volunteered and helped in so many ways.

Yet there is so much more to do. Please contact us if you wish to remain involved, or get even more involved by serving the community on a board, commission or in other ways.

At the celebration, Ed Sheehy thanked everyone who has gotten involved in our local government, and especially for those who have worked so hard to bring civility back to our political process.

Polls are open from 6 AM to 8 PM.

Afterwards, stop by at Democratic Headquarters to celebrate a great campaign.

According to the State Election Enforcement Commission’s Guide for Municipal Candidates, the treasurer of a candidate’s campaign committee must file a financial disclosure statement with the Town Clerk’s office by the 7th day prior to an election. With the Woodbridge Municipal Elections scheduled for Monday, May 4th this would require that the campaign committees file reports by April 27th. These reports must either be received at the Town Clerk’s office or postmarked by the 27th.

According to a source at the Town Clerk’s office, Mr. Colabella’s campaign finance disclosure statement had not been received as of close of business on Friday, May 1st. Others have commented that a similar occurrence happened in 1999 when Mr. Colabella ran against Roger Harrison in the First Selectman’s race in Woodbridge.

It is worth noting that former First Selectman Harrison is now chair of the Economic Development Commission, a commission that Mr. Colabella criticized during this year’s First Selectman’s debate, calling it ‘impotent’.

Is Mr. Colabella simply repeating a failed playbook from ten years ago? Does he have anything helpful to bring to the debate? More importantly, if these allegations are true, how can Mr. Colabella miss important filing dates and still call himself proactive? It would seem as if an accountant would understand the importance of filing financial reports on time.

Mr. Colabella has sent out mailings asking “Where’s Ed?”. It appears as if First Selectman Sheehy has been busy doing his job in a timely and appropriate manner. The real question seems to be, where’s Ken Colabella’s campaign finance disclosure statement?

Next Monday, voters will go to the polls in Woodbridge, CT to vote for First Selectman and members of several boards. Municipal elections don’t often get the same attention that national elections do, but they should. Decisions about how Federal money gets spent and how rules get implemented often happen at the municipal level. Yet issues at the local level rarely reach the same level of intensity as issues at the national level.

I’ve lived in Woodbridge for just under two years. It is a great town, and I’ve enjoyed becoming involved in the civic life of our community. As I’ve looked at the coming election, I’ve been trying to get a sense of what the real issues are here. For many, it may be a very simple issue, how much are our taxes and how are the tax rates changing?

A wiser question is what is the value of the services received, compared to the taxes paid to receive them. People will argue about whether or not First Selectman Sheehy’s strong leadership has been ‘proactive’ enough.

There is a pseudonymous email going around by a person who identifies himself only as “Wimps Begone”. He believes that Woodbridge should sell the Woodbridge Country Club Property “to David Reis and have him develop the 50 acres into 55+ CCRC, keep 100 acres as open space, maybe a nine hole golf course and start paying Woodbridge $1 million a year in taxes”.

Mr. Begone has a right to his opinion, and I applaud him for expressing it. I also applaud First Selectman Sheehy for his actions in making sure that all the people from Woodbridge, Mr. Begone, myself, and all of us, have an opportunity to have our say at how the property should be dealt with.

For the right decisions to be made in our town, we do need to encourage people to not wimp out on our political process. At the preliminary budget hearing, Dr. Silberberg and Mr. Luther spoke out strongly about a small part of the Woodbridge Board of Education budget and the process by which it was drafted. I believe they are wrong, and I spoke up at the meeting about how I think they are wrong. It is this sort of public dialog, even when it gets a little contentious, that helps make our community stronger. It is the many volunteers serving on the commissions of our town that helps keep our town working well.

Yet what Mr. Begone is doing is a disservice to our community. He is unwilling to publicly stand up and state his case. Instead he sends emails with false information deriding members of our community. It is actions like those of Mr. Begone that need to be gone from our political process.

What is perhaps more concerning is some of the comments Mr. Colabella made during the First Selectman’s debate. Like Dr. Sliberberg and Mr. Luther, Mr. Colabella deserves praise for being willing to stand up for his beliefs. However, repeating false information during the debate, which First Selectman Sheehy quickly corrected him on, does little to improve our town. Even worse, deriding of citizens giving of their time to make our town better is particularly damaging to our town.

To suggest that a commission, like the Economic Development Commission is impotent because they are not doing things the way Mr. Colabella wishes is an insult to everyone who works hard to make our town a better place. No, such volunteers are not impotent, they are important.

So, what is the real issue that we need to face in our town? We need to keep taxes low while keeping services as good as possible to maintain our property values. We do this by encouraging people to become more involved in our town’s civic life. We do this by acknowledging the hard work that volunteers do to make our town better. We do this by getting out and voting for people that work hard to improve the level of discourse and involvement at the local level.

That is why I am getting out and voting for the whole Democratic Slate. I hope you will do the same.

The purchase of the Woodbridge Country Club is widely supported by Democrats and Republicans alike here in Woodbridge and was approved unanimously by both the Democrats and Republicans on the Board of Selectman after a well attended special meeting where Democratic and Republican citizens alike stood to speak in favor of the deal.

However, as is too often the case in local politics, there is a fair amount of confusion and misinformation floating around about the deal. The Board of Selectmen sent out a letter addressing some of these concerns.

In order to promote involvement and informed discussion about the issues around the purchase of the Woodbridge Country Club, we are reproducing the letter here for the information of all the people of Woodbridge.

Saturday April 25 9:30 am to 12:30 pm

Woodbridge Father's Baseball League Opening Day
Lots of families come out for this ... Great way to meet new people.
We will be selling 06525 T-shirts
Come join us at the WDTC table ... Should be a great day!

Saturday April 25 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Phone calling at Headquarters (214 Amity Road)
Come down and help us make some calls!

Sunday April 26 12:00 noon to 4:00 pm

Phone calling at Headquarters (214 Amity Road)
Come down and help us make some calls!