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11/11/2015 07:00 AMI am very grateful, and thank you readers deeply for all the support given to me. Everyone who voted in the Nov. 3 Clinton elections should be proud. I aspire to keep the Board of Finance principled in this next upcoming cycle of budgets for the Fiscal Year 2016. I encourage all of your readers to participate in the process, beginning after the first of the New Year. All meetings are open to the public—remember this is each taxpayers’ money that we manage. Check out the dates and times on www.clintonct.org.
Also I cannot help but acknowledge the strange mathematical improbability of odds, with 3,264 votes, that an exact tie occurred in the first selectman race between the GOP candidate Bruce Farmer and the incumbent Willie Fritz. A recount will be done on Nov. 7 and if the tie still stands there will be a new vote, a run off, on Tuesday, Nov. 24, at Town Hall. Absentee ballots will be available, by Thursday, Nov. 12 at the Town Clerk’s Office.
It is crucial while we enter this budget cycle that we have leadership that has strong will, initiative, and is engaged in the process. What is meaningful to me is that the taxing and spending process gives taxpayers basic freedoms, above all the freedom to lead a life one has reason to value and enjoy. I have traditional, conservative values.
Our future is filled with difficult choices. While I’m proud of the facilities we have, the opening of a new school and resulting debt service/tax increase on this $65 million project will be very tough. Payments over $3.4 million in 2016 for this debt are due. These monies do not plow roads, or keep our beautiful Town Hall and beach open. It is debt service.
I encourage your readers to come out again, vote, and be empowered.
Ona Nejdl
Clinton
Ona Nejdl is chair of the Board of Finance.