Tuesday night at the Margaret Morton Government Center the 90-member Democratic Town Committee will endorse candidates for City Council and Board of Education and among the potential runners for school board is erstwhile mayoral candidate Lamond Daniels who announced after his run in the extended 2023 mayoral cycle he’d stay involved in municipal affairs.
Daniels, a former Finch administration aide and current Norwalk department head, came up just short of signatures to qualify for a Democratic primary in 2023 in which a state judge ordered a redo between Mayor Joe Ganim and John Gomes due to absentee ballot stuffing.
It took four elections for Ganim to finally be declared the winner. Along the way, Daniels endorsed Ganim over Gomes who ran out of money and support as Ganim won the second general election handily.
The school board has been a mess for years, mired in financial quicksand, infighting, revolving door of superintendents, board leaders and members, many of whom resigned in frustration. So bad that Governor Ned Lamont got involved, authorizing the state education department to provide direction, stability and even several intervention sessions to school them on civility.
In this sleepy off-cycle (no mayoral race) five school board seats (among nine) are in play, three Democrats and two minor-party slots required by state law.
If things go according to plan Democrats Tuesday night will endorse Daniels, current school board chair Jennifer Perez who has received accolades from the state for providing recent school board stability and newcomer Jowanne Burks, an accountant. Considering the district’s financial challenges, why not an accountant?
If these three are endorsed on Tuesday they could be primaried in September but that’s a difficult undertaking among challengers securing five percent verified signatures among 40,000-plus Democratic electors.
Gomes sounds like he’s ramping up another mayoral run in 2027, but can he coalesce an opposition force to win school board and City Council seats this year? Or will he throw all his thunder into two years from now?
Anti-establishment school board member Joe Sokolovic recently sent a letter to all 90 DTC members asking for endorsement support and if not received vowing a September primary. He supported Gomes in the last mayoral cycle.
Lenny, can you tell us what new things might be happening in the City Council member races?
Yes, Madeline, I’ll know more after tomorrow night when challengers to endorsed council candidates pull the paperwork to circulate petitions, but looks like several September primaries on the horizon. Word is Matt McCarthy in your Black Rock district will not seek reelection.
I have heard that the DTC meeting on Tuesday is at the Morton Center. Isn’t that kind of a conflict of interest?
It’s Bpt,candidates with conflict of interest are preferred..Everyone gathers,has a meal,a few glasses of wine,then Mario tells them who will be endorsed…
The way he hosted a fundraiser for Scott Burns, then publicly motherf*cked him will never sit well with me.
Cole Haymond,
You are exercising your right to freedom and independence of speech, but I have learned that such opinions, if they are to accomplish any change in behavior or opinion on the part of listeners should likely be factual, identifying who, did what, to whom, when, with additional facts (or observations) about why and the outcomes.
Who are you teasing with your partial revelation perhaps? What does it mean to “never sit well with” you? Personal action or future reservation on our part? What was the behavior that made you uncomfortable? Is it behavior that was unfair, mailicious, or damaging to Council person Burns?
If the DTC under long term leadership has behaved badly but with impunity, how have our governance structures dealt with this behavior? Oversseers failing to report? Higher leadership tolerating ‘politically’ powerful individuals to do their own thing without consequence? Failure to fully hold people accountable for activity closed to the public in general? Time will tell.