2015 Election - Links to Town Council candidate opinions on the issues and my own stand on them

For those of you that are interested in where all the candidates stand on issues that are impacting Wallingford please see the listings on the Record Journal website.

ALL CANDIDATES - Arts and Culture

ALL CANDIDATES - Public Safety

ALL CANDIDATES - Environment

ALL CANDIDATES - Education

ALL CANDIDATES - Jobs

ALL CANDIDATES - Taxes



My points on them are as follows:

Taxes: As long as there are salary increases, there will be increases in the cost of running the town, and therefore tax increases. What CAN be done to hold that line is to execute smart, economical, spending. Job consolidations upon retirements, where cross training of duties is done proactive to the retirements, so that retired positions can be filled by remaining workers or by new ones in a part time capacity, rather than at a full time equivalent, where expensive benefits and pensions further impact the bottom line.

Job/Local Economy: Wallingford’s low utilities are no longer the siren song to businesses as they used to be. Businesses now have their own co-generation potential and utility subsidy packages available to them. We need to aggressively market Wallingford as THE central business location in Connecticut from a highway / transportation as well as employee pool perspective.

 

Education: The Wallingford Superintendent of Schools and the Wallingford Board of Education has an annual plan as well as a five year strategic roadmap. To better prepare our children for the global, competitive, employment landscape, we need to creatively fund and support their efforts.   

 

Environment: Wallingford needs to be a responsible citizen when it comes to our environment by carefully planning and supporting efforts to clean up and maintain our waterways and our undeveloped areas. These need to be carefully weighed under their costs but as much as can be done with what we have at our disposal should be encouraged and positively supported. 

Public Safety: The safety of all our citizens is one of our top priorities. This is not an issue of “throw a ton of money at it” – that has never solved a single issue. We need to be vigilant in our efforts to have a safe town through police initiatives and community efforts. The more citizens, homeowners, and businesses that are invested in the effort, the more successful we will be.  

 

Arts/Culture in the community: Wallingford can choose to be a bedroom town or a thriving community. The former is a place where everyone lives and their kids go to school; where the adults, for the most part, leave to other locations for work and then lay their head at night. The latter is an involved and integrated community effort between the town itself, the students, residents, and the businesses that want Wallingford to reach its potential through shared participation of events and recreation for everyone to take part in, enjoy, and be proud of.