Feb. 22, 2024: Drama and Democracy- The RTC Primary

Hi Greenwich,

We just got back from a fun weekend watching our daughters play lacrosse at University of North Carolina where we cheered on our girls, celebrated lots of hang time with other moms, and drank giant beers out of plastic blue cups at college bars. Feeling drunk on democracy, we come to you with our latest newsletter. It’s time to sober up and exercise that all-important voting muscle!

RTC Primaries in on March 5

You may have seen some of the latest town news regarding the leadership and membership of the Republican Town Committee (RTC). We aren’t going to wade into the behind-the-scenes drama (we have 8th grade daughters – we don’t need additional drama). Instead, we simply want to share details for the upcoming RTC primary on March 5.  Read below for who can vote, when / where to vote, and why it matters.    

Who Should Vote and Where to Vote

If you are a registered Republican in Districts 2 (Town Hall), District 4 (New Lebanon School), District 5 (Riverside School), District 8 (Central School), and District 9 (Western Civic Center), you can vote in the RTC primary on March 5.  You will vote at your regular polling station listed in the parenthetical above.

If you’re unable to make it to vote on March 5, you can vote via absentee ballot. Your options are to: (1) head to Town Hall and vote in person with an absentee ballot (they’ll give you one in person and you can vote at that time), (2) download the application for an absentee ballot and the Town Clerk will mail one to you. If you have any issues, you can call the Town Clerk at 203.622.7897.

Why it Matters

These five primaries are happening because of challenges to the Jan. 9 RTC caucus results (there are no such challenges in the other districts). Typically the results of the caucuses stand, but this year they were challenged in a series of petitions for primaries. For background on the division with the Greenwich Republican party and the context for these challenges, you can read this article.  

Our last newsletter shared information about what the membership and leadership of the RTC and DTC do in Greenwich, and why it’s so important to vote in the caucuses and primaries. Quick recap: the RTC and DTC set the strategic direction for the party, pick candidates to run for the state legislature later this year, and endorse candidates for municipal offices.  Big picture, the upcoming primaries represent the battle for the soul of the Greenwich RTC. Not unlike what is happening at a national level, the local Republican party is torn between the more MAGA/Trumpian wing (currently represented by the RTC leadership) and more moderate members of the party looking to wrest control back from this group.

Do the Voting Moms have skin in this game? Well, yes – we all do. Because if we want a functioning local government, we need collaborative, serious leadership who is focused on the real challenges and opportunities. That equates to a two-party system that works together for the betterment of our town. We see the deadlocks in national politics. We deserve and can do better! So, if you are a registered Republican and can vote in your district caucus – go out there and do your thing. And then…join us in a celebratory toast to democracy.

Happy Voting!

The Voting Moms

Jan. 22, 2024: We May Be Freezing, But We are Still Fired Up!

Hi Greenwich,

Happy Monday! In between sipping hot toddies by the fire (Jenna) and planning her next polar plunge in the Sound (Emily), we wanted to pop back into your inbox with a few updates from the past two weeks, specifically regarding the Board of Ed Chairmanship. Also, we are queuing up a few things we’ll be tracking this year, including: Fred Camillo’s town budget; affordable housing (830g); town infrastructure (including the schools); town debt strategy; proposals impacting the mill rate; and street safety and traffic.

Board of Education Chair

In a vote to break the internal stalemate regarding the election of the BOE chair, the Board of Selectmen, led by Fred Camillo, selected Karen Kowalski as the Chair in a 2-1 vote. Our last note shared some information about the difference between the two candidates for Chair based on each candidate’s public statements and voting records. More information can be found here.  

In making his decision, Fred cited “the will of the voters” and the fact that Kowalski had 144 more votes than Hirsh in the November election (although neither was the highest vote getter on the BOE). There was a legitimate question of whether voters realized that the selection of the BOE Chair was on the ballot in the November local election and that the aggregate votes would ultimately be used to break this tie.  It’s not a scenario that typically occurs. Now we know! What this reinforces: voting matters, informed votes make a difference, and elections have consequences.

Many Greenwich residents have been concerned about the ratcheting up of “culture war” talking points within the BOE. Our hope is that Karen Kowalski is now solely focused on supporting: (i) educational excellence and (ii) our students and educators in the Greenwich Public Schools, with no attention paid to promoting “culture wars”.  In a good sign, this week Kowalski nominated Hirsh to the role of BOE Vice Chair. We’ll be tracking closely the votes, discourse, and public statements of the BOE as they move into this next session. Our lens for reporting back to you is: our Greenwich school board should reflect the community they serve and put the needs of our students first. We are lucky to have highly trained and educated leadership within GPS. Let’s not undermine their ability to lead and serve our community but instead enable them.

The Continued March Towards Moderate Bipartisanship

A little bit more we wanted to share…Inexplicably, The Voting Moms have been under relentless, albeit meritless, attacks from a small fringe group in Greenwich. We keep looking left and right for all this “dark money” they claim is flowing to The Voting Moms. No dollars have turned up; but you know we’ll keep an eye out. Why are we sharing this? First, it’s an important reminder that not all information sources care equally about the pursuit of truth. We must scrutinize and deprive conspiracy theories of oxygen. But also, importantly – we want to make clear that no amount of intimidation or harassment will knock The Voting Moms off course (even though, yes, the level and methods of online attacks have been creepy and a bit scary at times).  We both just read Liz Cheney’s new book, Oath and Honor. It’s an inspiring and devastating assessment of the Jan. 6th insurrection from Liz, someone who has regularly stood up against a relentless assault on the truth by a fringe minority. We highly recommend this book, not just because she is a true patriot but because it frames the extreme risks to our democracy posed by conspiracies, lies, and extremism. On a smaller scale, many towns, including Greenwich, are going through something similar right now. We need to be clear about what is at stake and own our power as Americans and Greenwich citizens. We do this by VOTING :) (You knew we would say that!)

We (should) all want a functioning and healthy democracy in Greenwich. This means Republican and Democratic town committees who are focused, in a fact-based way, on the multitude of issues and opportunities facing Greenwich. The current RTC’s obsessive and misguided attacks on Greenwich citizens, as well as its endless stream of conspiracy theories via social media and other communications, are very unfortunate for our town. This divisive and bizarre rhetoric takes the place of a thoughtful assessment and productive work by RTC leadership, including regarding why so many Greenwich citizens voted for a moderate, bipartisan RTM. Fred Camillo said it best when we talked with him in October: Greenwich should be governed from the center, and we shouldn’t spend time on extremists’ issues.

We really mean it when we push for moderate bipartisan representation! This is about thoughtful and fact-based debate prevailing. You guys showed up for the RTM election last November, and together we elected a bipartisan coalition who is doing just that as we write – working together to keep Greenwich amazing. The increased awareness of and push towards moderate bipartisanship is threatening to some. We get that. But please know that The Voting Moms will stand strong and firm against these attacks and continue on our mission.

Best,

The Voting Moms

Jan. 4, 2024: RTC & DTC Caucuses (yep, you should be excited)

Hi Greenwich!

Quick email from The Voting Moms to share the Greenwich Republican (RTC) and Democratic (DTC) caucus schedules. You might be wondering why you should care about the caucuses. We were too! Here’s what we learned – this is an opportunity to have our voices heard when it comes to the candidates, leadership, and priorities that ultimately represent each of the town parties.  (Side note: please follow us on Instagram.  It’s mostly dog and beach posts. Pizza content coming soon.)

The Basics:  Greenwich RTC & DTC Caucuses

The Greenwich, CT caucuses are biennial events held by both RTC and DTC to elect members who will lead and shape the party. Here's a breakdown of how they work.

Who can participate?

• You must be a registered Democrat or Republican residing in Greenwich to participate in the respective caucus.  

• If you are currently unaffiliated, you can register as a Republican or Democrat up to the day before the caucus by 5pm online  and up to 4pm in person at Town Hall.  

What happens during the caucus?

• The meeting starts with announcements and introductions.

• Party officials explain the roles and responsibilities of RTC/DTC members.

• Attendees nominate candidates from their district for RTC/DTC membership. You can even nominate yourself to be a member of the RTC or DTC.  Individuals may have an opportunity to speak for a few minutes. (Members are the ones who shape and guide the party’s agenda.)

• A vote is held to elect the nominees.

When and where are the caucuses?

RTC: Jan. 9, 2024 7pm

District 1 – Central Middle School Classroom

District 2 – Arch Street Upstairs

District 3 – Central Middle School Classroom

District 4 – Byram Fire Station

District 5 – Old Greenwich (media center)

District 6 – Old Greenwich School (cafeteria)

District 7 – Central Middle School Classroom

District 8 – St Lawrence Club

District 9 – Bendheim Western Civic Center

District 10 – North Street (media center)

District 11 – North Street School (cafeteria)

District 12 – North Mianus School (cafeteria)

DTC Caucuses:

District 1 Town Hall, Gisborne Room, 7:30 p.m. on January 10th

District 2 Town Hall, Gisborne Room, 7:30 p.m. on January 9th

District 3 Hamilton Avenue School, Community Room, 8:00 p.m. on January 10th

District 4  New Lebanon School Cafeteria, 7:30 p.m. on January 11th

District 5  Riverside School, Cafeteria, 7:30 p.m. on January 10th

District 6  Old Greenwich School, Cafeteria, 7:30 p.m. on January 10th

DIstrict 7  Greenwich High School, Teachers’ Cafeteria, 7:30 p.m. on January 10th

District 8  Cos Cob School Cafeteria, 7:30 p.m. on January 11th

District 9  Glenville School Room- Media Center, 7:30 p.m. on January 10th

District 10 Glenville School Cafeteria, 7:00 p.m. on January 10th

District 11 North Street School, Cafeteria, 6:30 p.m. on January 10th

District 12 North Mianus School, Media Room, 7:30 p.m. on January 10th

Voting on election days is always an important way to make our voices heard.  The caucuses are distinct, however, as they offer an opportunity to influence each party's direction and leadership. By attending and voting in caucuses, Greenwich residents can influence the RTC and DTC’s platform and agenda, and steer on issues such as policies and priorities, communications, candidate pipeline, fundraising, public outreach, and get-out-the-vote.  

You can probably guess where The Voting Moms’ caucus hopes lie.  We would love to see moderate agendas from the RTC and DTC and leadership who will serve the diverse interests of our town and approach town governance in a collaborative manner. Our town spoke up loudly in the November election when we elected moderate, bipartisan, and representative RTM candidates. Let’s keep up the momentum with the same push in the caucuses.

As you’ve heard from us before, it comes down to the importance of the candidates for local offices. They make key decisions about local taxes, infrastructures projects, and community development. By participating in our Greenwich party caucuses, you can make a difference in the Greenwich community because you will influence which priorities and values are represented in our local government.

Cheers to a great caucus for all,

The Voting Moms

Emily & Jenna

December 12, 2023: Glad Tidings of Budgets and BOE Chairmanships

Hi Greenwich,

We were just going back to our everyday lives of driving everyone everywhere, watching our teenage daughters present their holiday wish lists to us via powerpoint, and dreaming about sipping a spritzer on a desert island, when we realized we needed to pop back into your inbox sooner rather than later to bring you some important information about our Greenwich Public Schools.

Two critical agenda items – budget and BOE Chair – are percolating. You may not know about these important topics if you are like us – moms (and dads) who are too busy trying to get through December than to dig deep into town governance.  So here we go…

Agenda Item 1: The Greenwich Public School operating budget for the next fiscal year (2024-2025).

It is generally understood that the BET publishes budget guidelines for our public schools by early October of each year. The BET did not publish guidelines in that time frame this year. Absent the BET’s initial guidance, Toni Jones (the Superintendent of GPS) built and presented a budget in line with the current needs of the school system. (It’s worth the reminder: Toni is a seasoned expert working 24/7 for our schools – as our superintendent, we should generally trust her to do this work together with other stakeholders, who don’t always agree with her, but work to produce the best results for our town). Based on a number of factors – such as increased enrollment, higher cost of utilities, competitive substitute teacher salaries, and increased special education needs (based on enrollment and legislative requirements) – the budget needs were 6.5% higher than last year. The additional context of the budget is that Toni Jones is creating a budget in a challenging inflationary environment.

The BET rejected the Superintendent’s school’s budget by issuing new guidelines; instead allocating GPS a 4.3 percent increase for operating costs. This substantially lowered budget could have a number of key implications for the schools. To understand the context of the budget and the challenges of funding the school districts' needs, it is important to understand that the mandatory and essential increase in funding for Special Education services, combined with predetermined increases in teacher salaries, exceeds the overall rise in the BET's budget. Consequently, to adhere to the BET's financial directives, the District may need to implement program reductions. This could include discontinuing ALP Science, decreasing the number of staff in the district-wide ALP, and significantly reducing the duration of weekly Physical Education sessions, along with other potential cuts. Notably, the lion’s share (~85%) of the budget goes to salaries and transportation (i.e. costs that can’t be cut and which rise with increased enrollment). Once those items are funded, it is challenging to find much else to cut. We should always be looking for opportunities to cut unnecessary spend; but also be realistic about the spending needs of the district.

We thought a lot about how to frame this topic and we don’t think it’s our place to opine on each potential budget cut. We do want to share, however, what we learned from speaking with different stakeholders:, now is the time for parents to speak up about potential cuts they care about.

You can make your voice heard in a few ways:  

• Email all of the members of the BOE at: boardofedmembers@greenwich.k12.ct.us

• Sign up to speak at (and/or attend) the BOE meeting at this Thursday’s meeting (Dec. 14th at 7PM)

Based on our research, we recommend framing your submissions in one of two ways: (i) a general request for the BOE to fully support and approve Toni Jones’ budget or (ii) comments regarding specific proposed budget cuts.  If you have questions about cuts, please email us and we can share the details.

An additional data point that’s helpful: we are currently approaching rising educational costs a bit differently than neighboring districts. No district is immune to inflation and increased enrollments as more people move to the CT suburbs. Here’s what you should know —

• We are growing our budget at a lower rate compared to some other towns – Darien, for example – notwithstanding similar rising costs. Darien's BOE projected an increase of approximately 6%-7.5% in their core costs for the 2024-25 school year, significantly higher than the ~4% growth proposed by BET for Greenwich Schools.

• Greenwich is unique in having the lowest inflation-adjusted spending per student, which is even lower than it was 5-6 years ago.

• Many surrounding communities – but not in Greenwich – are boosting school funding to mitigate the educational and emotional impacts of the pandemic.

We always like to think of town spending in the context of our taxes and property values (read: we like low taxes and high property values!). Fulfilling the school budget request would result in a minor cost per household if no other budget aspects are altered. The public school system is a key factor attracting families to Greenwich, and any detriment to the schools could eventually lead to a decrease in property values.

After the BOE vote, the budget is then sent to the First Selectman, Fred Camillo.  He consolidates the entirety of the town’s budget (including the school’s) and presents it to the BET. The proposed Town budget then proceeds RTM and is reviewed by the RTM’s Education, Finance, and Budget Overview committees as well as the 12 Districts. The RTM adopts the budget in May each year.

Agenda Item 2: The selection of the Board of Education (BOE) Chair.

Like many things in this fraught political environment we currently find ourselves in, local municipal votes often fall along party lines (even when they shouldn’t be political). Unfortunately, the current process for selecting a Chair of the Board of Education is no exception. The members of the BOE have voted along party lines, resulting in a deadlock between electing Karen Hirsch and Karen Kowalski. A final vote is scheduled for this week, and if the vote remains deadlocked, the chairmanship will be determined by our First Selectman, Fred Camillo.

We wanted to take this space to express the importance of the Chair role. This person must be exceptionally collaborative in spirit and action. The Chair plays two critical roles – first, they are the voice of the Board. Even if the Chair disagrees with a Board vote, it’s important that they represent the outcome of the vote to our community.  Second, the Chair works closely with our Superintendent – collaborating on a consistent and daily basis. A productive and respectful working relationship between the Board and Superintendent is critical to the success of our school system. It also helps to reduce the frequency of superintendent turnover, of which Greenwich has seen its fair share. A less collaborative or combative Chair means our BOE is less apt to compromise and meet in the middle (and you know we prefer governing from the middle). The middle is where collaboration and compromise is forced. We think most Greenwich residents reside in the middle, and it’s what produces the best outcomes for our students.

If you agree that town boards operate best when led in a moderate, bipartisan fashion and the role of the BOE Chair is what’s stated above (we recognize that not everyone agrees with that framing of the BOE and the Chair’s role), there are notable differences between the two current candidates for Chair. As always, we’ve analyzed voting records, public statements and other verifiable information. There are concerns about the voting record of and public statements made by Karen Kowalski. On a number of significant votes, she has opted out of voting at all or voted against. For example, she was the single “no” vote on the BOE for CMS funding. In fact, she’s voted it down in every vote for the past two years. For clarity, we believe it’s illuminating when a representative is frequently in the small minority voting against or abstaining from a vote that the majority of their colleagues (on both sides of the aisle) support. This voting pattern, together with public statements, reasonably indicates a more fringe or less collaborative representative in our local government.

Below is a brief snapshot of both candidates.

Karen Kowalski

• Serving her second term on the Board of Education (BOE), with one year as Vice Chair

• Currently the Chair of the Policy Governance Committee

• Outside of the BOE, is a lawyer

• Opposed Dr. Jones' first contract extension and various school budgets

• Frequently differed from the board and unable to find compromise, evident in her stance against uncontested Board Officer Elections and the CMS Interim Funding

• The lone dissenting vote against the current capital budget

• Participated in the development of the GPS Strategic Plan but ultimately voted against it

• Criticized the board publicly, including an appearance on Newsmax (you can watch the video here) where she was critical of the GPS curriculum in front of a national audience

Karen Hirsh

• In her second term on the BOE, with extensive committee involvement including the Executive Committee and roles as Board Secretary, a member of the Policy Governance, District Curriculum Council, Strategic Plan Committee, and the Special Education Program Audit Steering Committee

• Has been on both the prevailing and losing sides of votes, but vastly in the majority resulting from debate and compromise on the Board.  Equally important, she has always fairly represented the vote of the Board

• Has consistently supported, after debate and Q&A, funding of critical school infrastructure projects based on the recommendations of the building committees and experts involved

• Acted as a Board Liaison to various committees and groups, including the Special Education Advisory Committee, Greenwich High School Student Government, GHS Entryway Building Committee, Cooperative Education Services, and more

• Previously involved with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education and the Greenwich Public Schools Return to School Committee in 2020

• Held leadership positions in the Greenwich PTA Council, including President and VP roles

• Served on the Board of Directors for the Connecticut PTA and the Glenville School PTA, with additional roles in event planning and yearbook production

• Former member of the Board of Directors of the YMCA in Greenwich

• Holds a BA in Psychology from Cornell University, specializing in early childhood development

We feel strongly that the Board of Education Chairmanship should be one not determined by party but rather by which board member will do the best work with others on the Board and with our Superintendent. At the end of the day, that is what this is all about. We hope this week’s vote breaks the deadlock. If you want to weigh in on the Chair decision, please email the BOE: boardofedmembers@greenwich.k12.ct.us. If the decision remains deadlocked and goes to Fred Camillo, you can email him: Fred.Camillo@greenwichct.org.Happy

Holidays to all,

The Voting Moms

November 30, 2023: Post Election Wrap-up

Hi Greenwich,

The Voting Moms here – popping in to share a few post-election thoughts, as well as some plans for the next year.

First, we want to give you a big high-five.   Greenwich SHOWED UP at the polls. The first part of The Voting Moms’ mission is to increase voter turnout in local elections. The way to effect change in Greenwich starts with simply showing up to vote. We’re pleased to report that voter turnout increased by 10% from 2021!  The final tally was 50.82% voter turnout, which is significant. Turnout of 18-54 year olds was ~31% of the population (vs 25% in 2021), and 39% of registered voters in that age group. In sum – we’re trending in the right direction with more residents voting, but we still have a lot of work to do!

Next, the second part of The Voting Mom’s mission is to help our community vote in a more informed way.  We heard from so many of you that, as a result of receiving our newsletters, you felt more confident walking into the voting booth. You knew how to vote based on your community values. We will always try our best to simplify information so that voting is easier.

As a result of more people voting and doing so in an informed way, we successfully voted in moderate, bipartisan, and representative candidates. The clear message, especially with your RTM votes, was that Greenwich rejected candidates who were less likely to engage in the healthy “give and take” of local RTM governance.

We’ll admit that we were disappointed for our town that BET leadership didn’t change. As you know from our newsletters leading up to the election, the Republican-led BET has woefully underfunded critical town infrastructure maintenance in the past decade, including for our schools. All Greenwich residents, whether or not you have kids in public school, should be very concerned about the state of our school infrastructure. Greenwich’s declining and crumbling (literally!) school buildings threaten kids’ safety and everyone’s property values. We are hopeful, however, that the historically close margin of victory (2%!!!) sent a powerful message to the BET. The very narrow win – in a race not historically in play – means that many voters shifted their support away from the Republican BET leadership. It also showed that engaged voters do not support austerity budgets when they do not make sense and are, in fact, irresponsible from a long term fiscal planning perspective.

We are more sure than ever that Greenwich residents want a healthy, representative bipartisan, moderate, collaborative, and trustworthy local democracy.  The Voting Moms will continue to bring you information and data that helps you vote based on these goals.

We are VERY excited to keep building on this momentum.  During the course of this year, you’ll hear from us from time to time. Instead of being inundated with information just before the next election, let’s all work to stay more informed in between elections. We will report back to you on key issues, legislative efforts, and votes, especially within the BET, RTM, and BOE.  As always, we’ll gather information, views, and data from a diverse set of stakeholders. Our mission remains the same: (i) increase voter turnout and (ii) help you vote in a more informed way. Based on this most recent election, we are 100% confident that, if we successfully achieve our mission, Greenwich ends up with a more moderate, bipartisan, and representative local government and continues to be an incredible town to call home.

Please be in touch with any questions or feedback (votingmoms@gmail.com).  You can always find our prior newsletters on our website. Thank you for your engagement!

The Voting Moms

Emily & Jenna

November 6, 2023: Vote Tomorrow!

Hi Greenwich!

Election Day is tomorrow!  The Voting Moms are here with a few last reminders and logistical items. First, let’s talk about how (not) fun it is to bring little kids into the voting booth.  We’re happy to share that there are three childcare options available to you while you pop inside to cast your ballot.

At Riverside Elementary, our EMS 8th grade daughters will be outside of the school from 1:45-3:00. You can leave your little ones with the 8th graders while you vote (Voting Mom Emily will also be there to oversee).

Old Greenwich School PTA will hold Vote, Play & Fun from 9-11 at the OGS playground.

Cups N’ Cones in OG has drop-off crafts from 1:00-3:00 (check their Instagram for details).

We’ve updated our website to include a screen-shot-ready bipartisan voting list by district, or you can scroll to the bottom of this email.  Just grab your list based on where you vote and you’ll be set! Find that list here.

Tomorrow the Voting Moms are going to vote for candidates based on: (i) particular community values and (ii) careful and deep analysis of the candidates voting records, public statements and other key inputs.

We want representatives who will choose to invest in public schools in a fiscally responsible and thoughtful way, always with our kids’ safety top of mind.

We want representatives who will develop and implement smart and creative investments throughout our town, including for the fire and police department and in pursuit of public safety more generally.

We want BET leadership who will serve the diverse interests of our town and approach budgeting with honest “give and take”, as opposed to what we are seeing now –  dogmatic decisions and leadership who placates a narrow, destructive, and fiscally harmful extremist agenda.

We want a functioning, collaborative, and diverse RTM, not a body held hostage by an extremist, fringe minority.

We love our low taxes, and we will vote for representatives who can do all of the above with fiscal rigor to keep our taxes low.

If these are not your values, that’s fine too.  Our local government works best with diversity of opinion and approach – but we all need to VOTE! It’s not an exaggeration – every vote in a local town election truly makes a difference. We all have to vote for the betterment of our wonderful community.  

We are going to keep this email short and sweet and reiterate our mission statement- Greenwich is better with moderate, bipartisan leadership that works together. We are focusing this email on the 2 most critical votes you will make – the vote for BET and RTM. With this in mind, we once again lay out our recommendations (based on the above values and research methodology) for how to vote for both.

BET – Vote Row A Greenwich Democrats for BET. This election will seat 6 R’s and 6 D’s, but the party with the most votes will win the chairmanship and will have the power to break the infrastructure funding logjam that has created a crisis in our public schools as well as other town projects.

RTM – Make sure to flip over the ballot! The back of your ballot is where you vote for your district’s RTM representatives. We ask that you “bullet vote”- meaning you only vote for the candidates listed below for each district to ensure a moderate, bipartisan RTM, without which, town budgets can be rejected and critical projects can be delayed even further. Again, the list of our “picks” is linked here or at the bottom of this email.

Please be in touch with any questions or feedback (votingmoms@gmail.com).  Thank you for your engagement in the lead up to this important election.

The Voting Moms

Emily & Jenna

November 2, 2023: News You Can Use

Election Day is in 6 days. Much has been happening around town – including the big WIN for Central Middle School funding, and the bizarre way it was handled by the BET Republicans. We know that there is information coming at you left and right (or maybe there isn’t – and in that case, you may actually need us more than you know!)  As always, we want to cut through the clutter and deliver to you the most important takeaways a little less than one week before Election Day. Heads up that our next note will detail a few childcare options for Election Day so you can vote more easily.

We met with some awesome RTM candidates yesterday morning and discussed why people (especially younger parents) in town don’t vote. It’s easy to cocoon ourselves in the beauty of Greenwich and believe that local elections don’t really affect our lives. This is not true. Local elections are the most important for ourselves and our families because they directly impact us. Schools, sidewalks, sports fields, safe crossing zones for our kids – all of these are under the jurisdiction of our local elected representatives. YOU should have a hand in picking them!

The Central Middle School Project

We’re so happy (and relieved) for the CMS Building Committee and the Greenwich community more broadly – they received BET approval to fund the new school building.  This project has been delayed and obstructed by the BET leadership (currently in the hands of Republicans). Not one Republican BET member running for re-election voted for CMS. The two outgoing Republican members – Bill Drake and Dan Ozizmir – voted with the six Democrats to fund the project, and both were promptly skewered by their own party for having supported the project’s approval. Three Republicans – Leslie Tarkington, Harry Fisher and Nisha Arora – abstained, and one, Karen Fassuliotis, voted no. It is crystal clear to us based on voting records and public statement: if the voter’s leave the BET in the hands of Republicans, you can guarantee that not one of them will vote for the OGS renovation. (Or for Riverside, which was just approved in the Board of Education’s capital budget.)  Supporting our schools and the value they bring to all of Greenwich means you must get out to vote and – for BET – vote for all 6 candidates on Row A:

• Stephen Selbst

• Elliot Alcheck

• David Weisbrod

• Matt DesChamps

• Scott Kalb

• Leslie Moriarty

After the critical BET vote, the RTM passed CMS funding by an overwhelming margin, voting for a school that will be with us for the next half century plus.

We will send out one more note before the election focusing on the RTM. Critically, this body holds the keys to final budget approvals in town. We need to make sure they are made up of a group of candidates who will work together for the betterment of Greenwich. The RTM is a storied political body, unique to New England and specifically to Greenwich. It is a vital part of our town, and it should not be populated by fringe partisans on either side of the aisle. Put simply: the RTM’s very purpose – to be a diverse representative body – is broken if we allow the extremist agenda to take over.  The only way to preserve the veracity and specialness of the RTM is to VOTE to reject the extremists who want to break it.

Please take a moment to read the linked articles below as they highlight the attempted extremist takeover of our Greenwich institutions, specifically the RTM.

As always, you can check out our previous 2023 newsletters on our website.

Less than a week to go- let’s get excited!

The Voting Moms

Recent Articles:

• WATERS: From the Front Lines – The Republican BET’s Descent into Madness & Incompetence

• GROUP LETTER: Planned Takeover of The RTM Is a Clear and Present Danger to Greenwich Government (Submitted by A Coalition Of Registered Republican, Democratic and Undecided Voters: Stephanie Cowie, Jeremy Kostin, Arline Lomazzo, Jaysen Medhurst, Skip Parker, Dan Quigley, Steve Rubin, James Waters)

• Meskers: Vote for a nonpartisan slate of RTM candidates which includes Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated which I strongly support

• Krumeich & Cooper: Last Minute Candidate Petitions Exposed MAGA scheme to take-over RTM

• Peter Bernstein (opinion): Time for change in Greenwich BET (Peter Bernstein is former chair of the Greenwich Board of Education)

• FINN: We need to get the job done on Nov 7!

• PATEL: How well does the RTM represent you?

• Wasserman: High Rise Hysteria (umm yeah, high rises in Greenwich = not a thing that anyone has proposed)

• PTA Leaders Open Letter to BET & RTM: Fund New Central Middle School

October 2023: The Voting Moms Deliver our BET and RTM Picks

Greenwich friends,

Last night, the BET once again rejected funding the critical CMS and OGS building projects. Each project and its respective building committee has been through many rounds of extensive (and important) diligence, questions and advised by experts. There is unanimous support for the projects from the Board of Selectmen, Board of Education, and Planning & Zoning.  Yet the BET continually delays the projects and moves the goalposts. If you have read our past emails, you know that we feel strongly that the BET should support and approve our critical infrastructure projects. You also know that it does not have to be this way! It’s become unnecessarily polarized. The BET used to work more collaboratively with very few party line votes. Moreover, there was generally agreement that creative, targeted and proactive investment in town infrastructure was a priority.  That is no longer the case. Today, the BET votes come down almost entirely along party lines, and the controlling people do not vote in ways that support investment in infrastructure (including our public schools).  This conclusion is not conjecture or opinion – but instead reflects the voting records and how BET representatives testify in the meetings.  We know that you, like The Voting Moms, are extremely frustrated.

Elect the BET Democrats to Lead

If you want to break the logjam, we must vote for the 6 BET Democrats to ensure they receive the BET chairmanship. This will give them the power to tie break the votes that hold up the school funding and construction process. Everyone agrees that we need to fix the schools. The current leadership has stalled the execution of plans that all residents – not just parents – recognize must proceed. (An explanation of how the BET works here.)

I am a Republican. Why would I vote for Democrats?

Voting for Democrats in this instance means that Democrats will have the chairmanship, a critical role on the BET. Bear in mind that the BET will still have 6 BET Republicans.

The difference will be that our bipartisan BET body will have leadership that supports, rather than stalls and obstructs, the critical school infrastructure projects and other necessary investments in our town.

The All-Important RTM election

Next, it is critical that we vote for RTM members who will support the principles we laid out above. There has been much talk about the unprecedented number of candidates running for RTM.

We need to ensure the RTM remains a collaborative, healthy bipartisan body made up of people who want to make Greenwich work, not individuals who want to “break” local government with obstructionist positions. For this reason, we are including a list of bipartisan candidates —  Republicans, Democrats, and Unaffiliated — who will ensure a productive RTM. We urge you to snap a picture of your district list, and bring your phone with you to vote for easy reference. (Campaign materials cannot be brought into the booth with you.)

How did we arrive at this list?

We researched and reviewed voting records and talked to many of the stakeholders who have helped shape our understanding of the RTM’s role in town and specifically in the school infrastructure crisis. This group includes members of the BET, BOE and school building committees, as well as current RTM and candidates for RTM. This group is bipartisan, made of everyone from lifelong Greenwich residents to newcomers. By design, the individuals on these lists do not agree on everything. They will, however, engage in thoughtful and collaborative debate. All with one goal in mind:  investment in and the betterment of this amazing town.  Please note that this list is near-final but we welcome feedback on anyone we may have missed.

Our (near-final) picks for RTM are below:

District #1- Julian Curtiss School Gym

Katharine Ashworth

Jillian Aufderheide

Edward Dadakis

Frederick Feldman

Lynn Garelick

Alison Ghiorse

Dean C. Goss

Julia Lane

Brigitte Lee

Frederick Lee, Jr.

David A. Levine

Jaysen Lee Medhurst

Elizabeth Mills

Aakash Patel

Daniel Quigley

Chloe Rosenfeld

Samuel Rosenfeld

Elizabeth Urdang

Jeffrey Urdang

District #2- Town Hall, 1st Floor Meeting Room

Donald Conway

Keith Damsky

Jennifer Jones

Jill Kelly

Joseph Kelly

Katherine Lobalbo

Mary Ellen Markowitz

Ammar Murad

Pragati Soni

Joyce P. “Jay” Teevan

Please write in:

Jill Oberlander

District #3- Western Middle School

Elias Cohen

Sylvester J. Pecora, Sr. Steven Rubin

Karsten Vagner

Please write-in:

John Bologna

Dawn Fortunato

Hale Bayram

Isra Selin Bayram

District #4- New Lebanon School Gym

Javier Aleman

Seth Bacon

Maria Bocchino

Joshua Brown

Ronald Carosella

Andrea Casson

Charles F. Costello

Elizabeth Eckert

Rosemarie Macaluso

Robert McKnight

Romulo Samaniego

Diego Sanchez

Lucy von Brachel

District #5- Riverside School Gym

Eric Beiley

Kathleen Brady

Edward “Tom” Broadhurst Linda Cochran

Christina Downey

Douglas Fenton

Paul Kramer

Lucy Krasnor

Lindy Lilien

Sean Olesen

Jane Owen Brash

Joan Thakor

Kimberly Treibick

District #6- Old Greenwich School Gym

Jennifer Andrews

Marilyn Ross Cahn

Robert Carter

Nicole Chaudhri

Morgan Evans

Noah Finz

Daniel Izzo

Coline Jenkins

John Merrill

Stephen Meskers

Barbara O’Neill

Tracy Grossman Parsons

David Snyder

Mary Manuel Tobin

Alexis Voulgaris

Michelle Waugh

Stacey Widlitz

Victoria Martin Young

District #7-Greenwich High School

Debbie Appelbaum

Kimberly Blank

Ellen Brennan-Galvin

Margaret Butler

Thomas Cahill

William Galvin, III

Miriam Kreuzer

Martin Leibrock

Anthony Moor

Marina Rosin

District #8- Central Middle School

Hector Arzeno

Lisa Becker Edmundson

Peter Berg

Francis Burgweger

Craig Chapman

Peter Cruikshank

M. Irene Dietrich

Christine Edwards

James Finn

Samuelle Jacobs

Myra Klockenbrink

Genny Krob

Sharon Lazar

Janet McMahon

Cheryl Moss

Kathleen Myer

Andrew Oliver, II

Jonathan Perloe

Sheila Phelan

Daniel Rosell

Caryn Rosenbaum

Mary “Molly” Saleeby

Alison Soler

Brian Sullivan

Elizabeth Tommasino

District #9- Western Greenwich Civic Center

Claudia Carthaus

Barbara Darula

Patti DeFelice

Pamela Ferraro

Betsy Frumin

Donna Gaudioso-Zeale

Carl Griffasi

Elizabeth Hester

Anne Jones

Mark Kordick

Abbe Large

Lauren O’Keefe

Geralyn Rubenstein

Fernando Schiro

Jonathan Shankman

Joanne Steinhart

Amelia Szabo

Jane Weisbecker

District #10- Glenville School

Gerald Anderson

P. Jude Collins

Pamela Fontana

Louisa Stone

Svetlana Wasserman

District #11- North Street School Gym

Adam Brodsky

Robert Chaney

Stephanie Cowie

Thomas Devaney

Susan Fahey

Tracy Freedman

Karen Giannuzzi

Cathleen Kenney

Jennifer Klein

Adam Leader

Mark Lewis

Richard Neuman

Vinay Pande

Nerlyn Pierson

Peter Samponaro

Cathy Steel

Jordan Yarett

Gregory Zorthian

District #12- North Mianus School Gym

Thomas Agresta

Francia Alvarez

Craig Amundson

Glen Canner

David de Milhau

Mary Flynn

Barbara Hindman

Jonathan Kantor

Mary Keller

Aaron Leonard

Abigail McCarthy

Richard Montier

Noelle Moore

Ellen Murdock

Jeffrey Norton

Monica Prihoda

Jocelyn Riddle

Jane Sulich

Andrew Vranos

James Waters

Andrew Winston

We know many of you are frustrated.  We are too.  Channel this into energy to hit the polls on November 7th.  Remember please – it’s up to each one of us to VOTE for the betterment of our community.

Until our next note,

The Voting Moms

Jenna & Emily

Sept.29, 2023: Get Excited to Vote on 11/7! 

Hi Greenwich!

Our Greenwich Municipal election is November 7, 2023, and The Voting Moms are back to get you informed and excited to vote.  You’ll receive a few emails from us between now and Nov. 7th.  We urge you to please forward our emails to anyone and everyone. As always, our goal is to inform voters on important issues and encourage everyone to vote.  Did you know that less than 40% of the town votes in local elections? The voting turnout of 35-54 year olds (which largely represents school-aged parents) is ~28%. Our goal is to raise that number so that our elected representatives actually represent our values and goals for Greenwich.

You may be tempted to ask why THIS election is so important? Rest assured – this one is SUPER IMPORTANT. This is a high stakes local election because the state of our local schools hang in the balance. (Check out our previous email with details about the school infrastructure crisis). This election will determine the future of how we fund our critical school infrastructure. (Yes, this is a red alert issue.) Based on our conversations with parents and other important stakeholders in our community, we will focus our communications on these two paramount issues in the upcoming election:

• BET (Board Of Estimate And Taxation) – which is the Finance Committee of the Town of Greenwich that sets the Mill Rate and determines how taxpayer funds are spent. We will particularly focus on public school funding.

• RTM (Representative Town Meeting) – the Town legislative body that can set policy and pass spending measures and spending cuts. The RTM is made up of 230 people and is the 3rd largest legislature in the United States. It is organized in 12 separate districts.

The most critical decisions about whether to invest in our community, especially our school infrastructure, are made by the BET and RTM.

Our emails leading up to the election will share the names of the candidates that are “YES” votes for investing in our schools, and in particular the critical school infrastructure budget.

Candidates not on our list have a demonstrated track record of voting against funding for schools, or we expect they will based on their campaigns or platforms.

Unfortunately we’ve observed a massive uptick in disinformation from candidates and campaigns who are claiming to be “pro schools” but we know, in fact, that they have and will vote against the basic funding needs.

We are doing a ton of work and diligence behind the scenes to validate who you should vote for if you want investment in our community to include our public schools.

As a reminder and for those who are new to The Voting Moms, our goals are simple: (i) get more people out to vote in local elections. (ii) help you to vote in an informed way.  As a result, we hope to reduce extremism in our local government. It’s in Greenwich’s collective best interests to vote for bipartisan candidates who are collaborative, moderate and want to invest in our community.

Unfortunately there are extremists who are entering these races in an effort to polarize, obstruct, and “break” the local, bipartisan legislative body. Their presence in local government hurts our town in so many ways and will actually harm our schools. More to come on this in further emails.

So where do we start? With the 2 pressing issues right now – absentee ballot info for those who need it and voter registration information, specifically for those of us with older teens or college kids who are eligible to vote.

Voter Registration:

If you are not registered or have a college student who is not registered, the deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 7th election is October 31, 2023. Click here to register or click here to verify your registration status as well as confirm your district and polling location.

Absentee Ballots:

You can now request an absentee ballot online through the State of Connecticut, and the ballot will be mailed to you. All you will need is your CT Driver’s License number. Apply for Absentee Ballot Online.You can apply for an absentee ballot in person at Greenwich Town Hall and the ballot will be mailed to you after October 6th.

If your college students are home in October (after the 6th) you can actually apply for a ballot in person and vote in the same visit. Print out the following application, sign it, and bring it to the Town Clerk or mail it to the address below.  Apply for Absentee Ballot at Greenwich Town Hall.  

If you have any questions, please call the Town Clerk at 203.622.7897.

Mail application to:

Jacqueline A. Budkins

Greenwich Town Clerk - Town Hall

101 Field Point Road

Greenwich, CT 06830

Please become a voting PARENT! We promise, its awesome.

Thanks,

Emily & Jenna

Hi everyone!

The Voting Moms are back with a few updates and information that we hope will get you knowledgeable and ready to flex your voting muscles in the fall. We hope that the information we provide today helps inform your interactions with fellow Greenwich citizens, town representatives and vote in this November’s municipal election. 

This email began to germinate in the past month as our town witnessed frustrating decisions by the Greenwich Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) to lower the budget for the CMS reconstruction, reject plans to adequately renovate OGS in the next year and delay other schools’ critical fixes and updates (e.g., ADA compliance, sprinkler systems, HVAC systems).   The Votings Moms have observed a significant uptick of awareness and discussion on this topic.  We are sending this email to help you frame this very important issue. As always, our goal is to inform and encourage everyone to vote. Less than 40% of the town votes in local elections. Our aim is to raise that number. 

We live in a thriving, and, yes, wealthy community. Many of us are all asking ourselves – how did it get to this point where our school infrastructure is in a state of total disrepair? Shouldn't our public schools reflect the values of this community? Who is in charge, how are these budget decisions made and how do we affect change?  We share your frustration that your voices were not heard – despite being organized, direct and, by all accounts, reasonable.  

Spoiler alert: the only direct way to affect change on the BET is by voting in our local elections.  The BET chairperson, who serves as the tiebreaker for votes and is therefore extremely powerful on these budget decisions, is decided simply by which party has the most total votes for BET in that election.

To inform this email, we spoke with several members of our community who have been closely involved in the budget process.  We learned a lot, and are anxious to share with you.  * Fun administrative note:  Emails will now be sent from votingmoms@gmail.com *

How did we get to this point?

Historically, the Board of Education would come to the BET with capital improvement project requests. In 2018, the BET released a 15 year Facilities Master Plan to streamline the process.  Included in the Master Plan were the many maintenance needs of the district schools. It was quite clear at that point, unfortunately, that massive underinvestment in the upkeep and maintenance of the schools (by at least ~$10-$15 million / a year) had left our schools in serious and sometimes critical disrepair.  

Despite the Master Plan’s adoption, little action has been taken to implement the repairs and updates.  Maintenance of school infrastructure continually takes a back-seat to the goal of keeping the “mill rate” down.  What this means: our taxes are low, but our schools are falling apart.  We heard across the board from each stakeholder that the BET has taken a piecemeal approach on the major updates.  The BET authorizes funding to implement only the most critical of updates in a reactive and one-off manner.  BET leadership has also stated its belief that we “shouldn’t take on more than one major project at a time.”  This approach has now resulted in Greenwich being in a constant state of “crisis mode” when it comes to the health and wellness of our school infrastructure. 

We are now in a position where we cannot ignore the repairs.  (Really, we can’t believe we’re arguing about raw sewage at OGS!) Our community of parents and other interested parties are highly engaged on this topic, but feel like our voices are not being heard.  

Mechanics – Wait, How Does the BET Work?

Greenwich Republicans and Democrats town parties have the opportunity to each nominate 6 people to serve on the BET.  This occurs in July when each party has their nominating convention. It’s a fairly opaque process that doesn’t typically involve a challenge  or community involvement.  If you want to challenge the party’s choice for any of the 6 members, you would need to petition for a primary.  A challenge rarely occurs.  The 12 people chosen out of this process make up the BET.  You see them listed as a group and by party on your voting ballots.  Now here’s the REALLY important part: the party that gets the most number of votes in an election for the BET nominees gets the BET chairmanship.  This is massively consequential!

Here’s an example with some easy numbers to help understand how this works (because, admittedly, we found it confusing):

• Greenwich has 100 citizens

• In July, the Democrats nominate 6 people to the BET in the Nov. election.  

• In July, the Republicans nominate 6 people to the BET in the Nov. election. 

• All 100 citizens come out to vote in the Nov. election.

• 51 vote for the Republican slate of nominees (even though you can vote across party lines and mix/match), giving them 306 total votes (51 voters X 6 nominees).  49 people vote for the Democratic slate, giving them 294 total votes (49 voters X 6 nominees).

• Result = All 12 people are on the BET to represent their respective party, and the Republicans get the Chairmanship because they had 306 total votes and Democrats had 294.

See more here (an awesome video about how the BET works.)

In Greewich’s last election, Republicans got more total votes than Democrats.  Therefore, the current chair is Dan Ozizmir, a Republican.  Because Republicans hold the Chairmanship of the BET, Ozizmir has the power to vote a second time in the case of a tie.  We have heard from many stakeholders that, unfortunately, in this time of extreme polarization between parties, most votes are completely along party lines.  This means that Ozizmir breaks the tie – and his role as Chair makes him one of the most powerful people in Greenwich.  If you want someone who will take a different approach to school funding in that role of Chair, you need to vote for the other party. Remember – only 40% of the town residents vote in local elections. With more voting comes an ability to affect change.

Republicans have controlled the BET for most of recent history.  During that period, party line votes were less common.  We heard from stakeholders that the BET members had largely collaborative relationships. Sadly, those days are over.

By way of example, in this most recent vote, most of the consequential votes were split 6-6 along party lines, so Ozizmir, as Chairman, cast his decisive tie breaking vote many times.  Dan generally rejects spending requests (as he is focused on keeping the mill rate down), and thus broke the BET tie with his vote against the requested budget for school repairs. 

Shouldn't our public schools reflect the values of this community?

What are the values of the Greenwich community? It’s clear that one value is low taxes.  We can’t argue with that!  We’ve heard your voices, however, and it’s also clear that many residents value our public schools.   

The piecemeal approach to building updates and maintenance is incongruent with one of our core values – safe and compliant schools for our kids.  What we’re hearing from you is that the binary focus on keeping the mill rate low does not fully reflect your values.  After speaking with different stakeholders, it’s clear to The Voting Moms that some budget / financing creativity and flexibility can appease both fiscal conservative and school infrastructure values.  

Different spending / budget philosophies are OK, and actually quite good to have represented in our local government.  What happened here, however, was a dogmatic budget vote that completely lacked creativity and flexibility, and ignored the community’s voice.  For example, instead of outright rejection, the BET leadership could have taken creative approaches with bonding and budget appropriations.  Unfortunately that didn’t happen and our kids and schools are directly and negatively impacted.  

The below table notes the BET member, their party affiliation, and their most recent position on the school repairs.

Name / Email/ Party

School Budget Vote:

Dan Ozizmir (CHAIRMAN)

Dan.Ozizmir@greenwichct.org

Republican

DENIED requested budget for the school repairs

Nisha Arora

Nisha.Arora@greenwichct.org

Republican

DENIED requested budget for the school repairs

Bill Drake 

William.Drake@greenwichct.org

Republican

DENIED requested budget for the school repairs

Laura Erickson 

Laura.Erickson@greenwichct.org

Democrat

APPROVED requested budget for school repairs

Karen Fassuliotis 

Karen.Fassuliotis@greenwichct.org

Republican

DENIED requested budget for the school repairs

Harry Fisher 

Harry.Fisher@greenwichct.org

Republican

DENIED requested budget for the school repairs

Miriam Kreuzer 

Miriam.Kreuzer@greenwichct.org

Democrat

APPROVED requested budget for school repairs

Leslie Moriarty 

Leslie.Moriarty@greenwichct.org

Democrat

APPROVED requested budget for school repairs

Jeffrey Ramer 

Jeff.Ramer@greenwichct.org

Democrat

APPROVED requested budget for school repairs

Stephen Selbst 

Stephen.Selbst@greenwichct.org

Democrat

APPROVED requested budget for school repairs

Leslie Tarkington 

Leslie.Tarkington@greenwichct.org

Republican

DENIED requested budget for the school repairs

David Weisbrod 

David.Weisbrod@greenwichct.org

Democrats

APPROVED requested budget for school repairs

To contact the full Board of Estimate and Taxation, email to: bet@greenwichct.org.

BET member profiles can be found here.

What Can You Do to Get the BET to Reflect Your Values?

As parents of children in the Greenwich Public School system, we need a BET made up of representative stakeholders. You do not have to have children in the school system to understand the need for safe school infrastructure, but having children in the system sure does help. Not one member of the current Greenwich BET who voted against the budget appropriations for our schools has children in the public school system. 

While it’s difficult to change who is nominated to be on the BET, we can determine who gets the chairmanship. As you know, we try very hard to present facts and not partisanship.  On this one, however, the facts and dividing line are stark:  the Democrats on the BET are “all in” on making necessary updates while the Republicans are not.  There is no nuance – if you believe that the school capital improvement budget should have been approved, then you would need to vote for Democrats for BET. This makes it more likely that the Democrats hold the chairmanship and can cast the tie-breaking votes to approve these projects.  We have also heard from at least one Democrat that they would like to pursue the more creative bonding plus appropriations approach. We need to take action to help move along these incredibly important projects with an approach that reflects the dire urgency of the needs of our public schools.

Please:  Get out to vote in November to deliver the chairmanship to the public servants who will move the needle for our children.  (Don’t worry – we’ll be back to remind you before November )

Our best,

The Voting Moms

Friends,

Nov. 1, 2022: The Upcoming Midterm Elections

It’s Emily and Jenna (THE VOTING MOMS – see our quick intro video here) – back to dive into some of the issues facing our community and present to you the imperatives of voting in the upcoming local election on November 8th. 

We are both GPS parents who feel strongly that we need to MODERATE the extreme and sometimes ugly voices coming from the fringes in our community.  We believe there are more of us moderates than there are the loud, toxic and persistent voices and squeaky wheels that unfortunately get so much attention.  We want to give airtime to candidates who have real, substantive and balanced ideas for our community, and who we know will work cooperatively across the aisle from their party.  We know that our kids, and our community broadly, will benefit if we elect moderate, fact-driven and empathetic people – regardless of which political party they belong to.

We want to present this email to you in a calm, rational, fact-focused and intelligent way – as a primer for viewing certain key issues, candidates and races. We don’t want to tell you how or whom to vote for, but we want to present to you a clear understanding of the issues at stake and where the candidates stand on these issues.  Don’t underestimate the importance of your 1 vote.  Remember: we kept the toxic fringe (represented by the Greenwich Patriots) off our school board by 1 vote in the last election.  Please get out to vote – and bring a friend or two.

As a final note, we want to reiterate how dangerous the Greenwich Patriots, an extreme right-wing group operating within our community, is for our town. We encourage you to sign up for their email blasts to get a sense of the anti-science, Q-Anon adjacent propaganda they send to their members. Greenwich Patriots have also taken on leadership positions within the RTC. Our community is unequivocally damaged by their polarizing and dangerous rhetoric, and the divisive and unproductive manner in which they govern. For this reason, we hope to defeat the candidates who stand in support of Greenwich Patriots so we can attempt to move our community forward toward a more thoughtful and moderate future for the sake of our children.

Rachel Khanna

Rachel is running for State Representative in District 149. Rachel is a rockstar candidate who represents a cross-section of our community and will absolutely govern in a balanced and productive way.  This is a red alert race. We cannot stress enough how important this race is for Greenwich and how critical it is that you are informed on who Rachel’s is running to unseat. Her opponent, Kimberly Fiorello, has been a highly destructive and negative representative for our community. Kimberly represents a small, toxic and uninformed fringe philosophy and set of values.  She continually votes against what should be basic, unalienable rights and core values – women’s rights, public education, protecting our environment, voting rights, and the economic interests of Greenwich.  She votes in paradoxical, destructive and unproductive ways.  

Across the board, it’s in no one’s best interests to have her in this seat.  For more information on Fiorello and her voting record, please see these links (here; here; here; here; here; here; here).  Fiorello boasts an “A” rating from the NRA and was one of the few CT legislators to vote against Jennifers’ Law (and doubled down after the fact as she attacked the law and then women who needed the law to protect them). We simply cannot trust her to support our state or protect the people of our community. We encourage you to learn more about Rachel Khanna for this state rep seat.  

RYAN FAZIO

Ryan is running for State Senator.  His opponent, Trevor Crowe, is a wonderful candidate who we believe will bring thoughtful and empathetic leadership to the seat. Trevor is undoubtedly a moderate who will operate far from the toxic and extreme fringe of either party.  We want to give Ryan his due credit, however, for his largely balanced leadership to date.  He has avoided endorsing, explicitly or implicitly, the extreme and toxic MAGA and Q-ANON adjacent ideas around: Jan. 6 / election deniers, womens’ rights, alleged indoctrination in GPS schools and integrating religious ideology into state matters. Importantly, he has stayed distanced from the Greenwich Patriots.  Had he not, it would have been a singular disqualifying factor.

Instead, Ryan has largely focused on core economic and infrastructure issues in our community.  He has also vowed to protect a woman's right to choose.  I (Emily) have personally spoken with him multiple times on this topic to get his explicit assurance. We will hold him accountable for this commitment. Ryan has also publicly and privately supported Jennifers’ Law, a groundbreaking CT law that protects women and children in domestic violence situations. 

While we do see that Ryan at times veers too extreme in favor of defunding our public school system, we do think he’ll do well working with a balanced and moderate slate of electors.

We generally see that he can be trusted steward of our state’s financial future. As women in CT and moms to 12 year old daughters, we believe that, like Trevor Crowe, Ryan will be an ally and an advocate.

Hector Arzeno

Hector Arzeno is running for the State House, 151st District. His opponent is Peter Sherr. Arzeno is a Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate who pledges to expand the state’s ban on assault weapons, strengthens background checks, and enables law enforcement to limit the availability of weapons. 

Arzeno also supports a women’s right to safe and legal abortion access as an integral part of women’s health. 

Arzeno is a public school parent of 4 and an RTM member. His aim is to provide a safe and dynamic quality public education for our kids by avoiding partisan rancor and adequately funding our public schools.

Peter Sherr, on the contrary, has parrotted many of the extreme voices arguing that our public school curriculum should be reviewed by local parents. He often speaks at BOE meetings and argues against any social and emotional learning in the classroom. In his own words, he says that Hartford's primary education policy agenda has been focused on social justice and sexuality education. Sherr represents the extremist views that we feel are actually hindering our public schools, turning BOE meetings into a circus, and creating fabricated outrage around CRT and social learning that simply does not exist in the GPS curriculum. We know these talking points are being used across many Republican platforms and suggest that this focus is a distraction from the amazing work our educators have done throughout Covid and beyond. We want to support candidates with a focus on funding our schools, not yelling at our educators.

More information on Arzeno can be found here.

Steve Meskers

Steve Meskers is running for State Representative for the 150 district.  He’s been in this role since 2018. His opponent is Ed Lopez. Meskers’ has an “F” rating from the NRA, and is endorsed by CT Against Gun Violence.  In addition, his priorities include halting the upward spiral in healthcare costs by increasing competition in the pharmaceutical market. A second focus is reforming the energy sector and increasing oversight to benefit ratepayers. 

Meskers believes that no politician has a place in the room with a woman and her medical practitioner. He believes in a broader and better health care system, a more robust birth control and sex education program to reduce the incidence of abortion. 

Meskers is also a member of the Coastal Caucus, a joint Senate House committee working to protect the Long Island Sound in coordination with Connecticut’s Blue Plan.  He’s a moderate who we expect will find common ground with his electoral colleagues. 

Mesker’s opponent is Ed Lopez. Like Peter Sherr, he called for immediately suspending the superintendent and deputy superintendent of schools in response to an “effort to influence and indoctrinate students with specific political ideologies.” Lopez is another extreme and toxic voice in our now-contentious BOE meetings. Further, Lopez has not explicitly said he supports abortion rights and a woman’s right to choose.  He is not a representative that we can trust to protect womens’ rights. More on Meskers here.

Thank you for taking the time to read our email. We ask that you share it with anyone and everyone. We welcome feedback, discussion or questions.  Please please PLEASE vote on Nov. 8th.  

The Voting Moms(™)

Jenna & Emily
Questions? Email us at votingmoms@gmail.com
PS - We didn’t want to waste prime real estate to cover the State Senate race between Richard Blumenthal and Leora Levy as the race seems safely in the hands of Blumenthal.  But we’d be remiss if we didn’t highlight that Levy espouses extremely dangerous fringe ideologies. She’s a proud hardcore far-right / MAGA disciple.  Levy is endorsed by Trump, held a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, is opposed to all abortions except for in cases of rape and incest, faults the media for questioning Trump’s role in the January 6th insurrection, and has objected to a provision that would allow other states to adopt a law like the one in CT which allows law enforcement to seize firearms from owners deemed unfit. See more about her here. It’s important to demonstrate, via our votes, that we do not want toxic extremists in our community.  Levy brings no substantive or productive ideas to the table.

Friends,

We are writing to you today to alert you to the high stakes of the upcoming BOE elections on November 2nd.

We’ve all had so many conversations this past year, and especially in the last few months, that are filled with frustrations and shock over how the Greenwich Patriots — a very small, toxic and contentious fringe movement — has dominated our local political and community discourse. We all worry about the negative impact on our kids’ schools by the Greenwich Patriots’ dangerous ideology. We also worry about our teachers. This past week, Greenwich teachers held a solidarity walk to the BOE meeting as many feel targeted by these same fringe elements who accuse them of indoctrinating their children.

Let’s not worry anymore; let’s take action.  

It goes unsaid that we take great pride in the diversity of opinion and perspectives represented in Greenwich. However, the tactics employed by the Greenwich Patriots to intimidate our school board and harass our administrators and teachers under the auspices of personal freedom is dangerous and unacceptable.

This is not about being a Republican or Democrat.  This is about voting people into office that have humanity and willingness to debate and act based on facts and science. 

Let’s tap into this potent energy and mobilize.  Please get out and vote on Nov. 2.  Make sure everyone you talk to is informed as to which candidates will act in the best interest of our community.  

The BOE allows for 4 office holders (2 Republican and 2 Democrats.)  The current slate of candidates includes 2 incumbent Democrats and 3 Republicans vying for 2 spots. There is also 1 Independent write-in candidate.   

Candidates are:

• Kathleen Stowe (D)

• Laura Kostin (D)

• Cody Kittle (R)

• Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony (R)

• Megan Galletta (R)

• Kara Philbin (Independent)

The R race is incredibly high stakes as one of the candidates, Megan Galletta, is a Greewich Patriot who supports anti-mask and anti-vax messaging and has contributed to the divisive rhetoric in BOE meetings.  Kara Philbin, the Independent candidate, has stated that she had planned to vote for Galletta, but then decided to be a candidate (as a write-in), which would further extend the Greenwich Patriots’ messaging.  

A recent Op-Ed confirms the notion that we cannot risk electing someone with this ideology.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email.  We ask that you share it with anyone and everyone, and get them to VOTE on Nov. 2nd.  Any way that you can amplify this call to action, please do.  

~ Emily and Jenna

P.S.  We agree with all people’s rights to free speech.  We do not, however, believe that all speech should be given credence by elevating it in the realm of public service, especially where that speech has potentially harmful implications for our community.  Read more about the Paradox of Tolerance.