An open letter to all the voters of Wallingford – Democrat, Republican, Other and Unaffiliated

Let’s be mindful of the fact that serving the public is in itself a daunting task; the hours are long and the work is generally unrewarding (except for personal satisfaction in most cases) but each of us does it for our own reasons.

The desire to run for public office is expensive in both real money and personal time.

At the end of the day WE, those of us that are running and / or presently serving, are the ones that should be in focus.

If you don’t like our policies and our plans then come take issue with them – come to a public meeting, raise us on the phone, or send us a letter or an email and bring up your comments and concerns.

This morning the sign below was vandalized by someone that acted on a “crime of opportunity”. I am not excusing it but that’s what it was - “hey look a sign” – car jumps the curb and takes out the sign. With the number of signs and locations that I have and with them being up for the past seven weeks I am honestly surprised I got this far without incident.

The Police were called but there is little they can actually follow up on and the most one could hope for is some front end damage to the car that hit it. The most unfortunate part of this damage is the impact to the unsuspecting homeowner for doing nothing more than supporting their candidate.

 

This one below is the one that bothers me actually. It bothers me because it was NOT a "crime" of opportunity but rather a targeted, premeditated and calculated effort which in my book makes it FAR worse.

Someone took the time to plan their trespass on my mother’s property specifically, remove the sign and intentionally put it in front of her car at the car port – blocking her in.

Neither situation is acceptable but this is 100 times worse than the prior.

I have so many different feelings right now and the writing helped defer some of them but I am going to make three final comments and then go outside in the yard to play with my kids:

1) Unlike how I personally and my supporters were unjustly accused of putting inflammatory paper posters up of the Mayor a couple of months back, I know that these acts were independently executed and not the orchestrated effort of anyone connected directly to any of the campaigns.

2) I do not condone any actions of this nature and will not – proactively or reactively, on me or on my opponents – there is no place for it. I do not expect escalation or retaliation and I will deal with both the same way; I will inform the police and if I catch it in the act I will take immediate actions.

3) I am running for office - I am fair play; my mother, my wife and my kids are neither – keep them clear of it.

I’m out – see you Monday morning from the train.