We need a Mayor who will help the Board of Education develop and verbalize their vision and execute it – as well as fund it. If the Mayor and Town Council continue to undermine the BOE budget, how can we ever expect our school system to thrive? There is no better time than now. We must move forward with a plan. We need leadership that is going to deliver the best educational experience we can provide.

Under Democratic leadership, our Mayor and Town Council would work closely with our Planning and Zoning Commission to explore options to increase housing for ALL income levels in Wallingford. This is one of our biggest issues in town right now, and we need our elected leaders to take the lead on this crisis if we expect things to get better any time soon. This is why we are committed to making this one of our top priorities, not just for seniors, but for all Wallingford residents.

First of all, we need to take advantage of any and all grant money that might be available to us. We have missed major opportunities in the past for all sorts of projects, including rebuilding our schools. On the industrial and commercial sides, we are seeing far less revenue for the town compared to a decade ago. We should be actively recruiting dynamic businesses to Wallingford to grow our tax base, using our central location and Wallingford Electric Division to our advantage. We need an administration that will work proactively across different sectors to make sure our Grand List is equitable and sustainable for future generations of Wallingford residents.

We will fight to keep Wallingford clean and beautiful and make sure that local companies are doing the same in our backyard. We’d like Wallingford Electric Division to stabilize and future-proof our energy costs by incentivizing and installing solar over every roof and parking lot, generating clean, free (except for the cost of materials and installation) energy that will power the town for 20 years or more and can be recycled and repowered. A solar panel recycling plant in town would be ground breaking and generate jobs. We could beautify areas of town with contour swales and rain garden-like retention basins in key places to reduce the load on our water division, decrease water pollution, and prevent flooding where the potential exists.

The fight against bigotry and injustice is as urgent as ever, and we will always stand up to ensure our friends and neighbors in the LGBTQ+ community are guaranteed the same basic rights as anyone else. And how often we forget that just 58 years ago, the Supreme Court forced 16 states to allow interracial marriage, or that the March on Selma was only 60 years ago. Meanwhile, from Los Angeles to Meriden, immigrant communities across the country are being targeted with cruel and unconstitutional attacks from the federal government. The basic freedoms that American heroes like John Lewis and Harvey Milk fought for are not negotiable in a democratic society!

While this might sound cliche, it’s an unfortunate fact that Wallingford has seen a lot of political infighting in recent years, while also developing the reputation as a “backdoor town” due to a lack of transparency. This is a disservice to taxpayers and counterproductive to any tangible progress. Our Democratic slate is committed to working as a team and always putting Wallingford first. On top of possessing impressive and diverse professional backgrounds making them well-equipped for politics.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Town Councilor who represents your neighborhood – just one person who represents you at the town level? Right now all 9 Town Councilors are directly responsible (or not) to all, and that doesn’t always work out so well. When everyone is responsible sometimes it means no one is responsible, and we need to be able to hold all of our elected representatives accountable. We also need to look at the balance of power between our Mayor and Town Council carefully.