Letter to the editor from Fred Camillo
To the editor….
Emails being sent unsolicited by DTC members as well as official DTC communication emails and letters to the editor by DTC members have brought the public discourse in Greenwich to a new low. The flat out lies, distortions, and deflections away from the very solid records of the Greenwich Delegation and away from the Malloy Administration and one party Democratic rule for over 40 years is very telling. The distorters and truth stretchers (DTC member, Phylis Behlen) even reach out to the national Democratic playbook and attack a free market, pro-growth organization whose conferences I have attended by falsely claiming that are into social policy. They should take a look at the organization’s Transparency and public Engagement statement before throwing out false statements.
For my whole adult life, I have volunteered for the district I grew up in, the town I love, and for the state about which I care deeply. For Mrs. Behlen, whom I do not know, to suggest that I don’t have the people’s back is both insulting and false, but she wrote it anyway.
The DTC false information and deflection/distraction campaign, one fully engaged in by my opponent, a person who just moved into our distract last year, has only one year of legislative experience ( vs. the three and a half terms I served on the RTM, Parks & Recreation Board chairmanship, RTC chairmanship, numerous other board assignments in town and around the state, as 10 years representing my home district at the State Capitol ), never even bothered to vote in five recent elections ( 2004, 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2015 ), and repeatedly lies about my record, has been disgraceful. If this is how the local DTC acts and who they nominate to run for office, it speaks volumes of what they think of our citizens, the voters.
One example of the outrageous distortion of facts being done and sent out in emails is the erroneous statement that we in the Greenwich Delegation voted against the ban on bump stocks. The link that one DTC member sent out even has a link showing that not only did I vote for the bill, but that I sponsored it, too. Then, the DTC member states that I voted for an amendment to weaken the bill, which is a gross distortion of the amendment I voted for. What the amendment stated was to allow anyone who had one and never had done anything other than to use these guns at ranges, to keep them as long as they never left their homes unless to go shooting at the range. This was done with other weapons bans in the past, so the misinformation campaign by the DTC once again fails the Reality Test.
Lastly, they are claiming we voted against bills that never even came up for a vote! If that simple fact, which is easy to look up, is manipulated and sent out to the voters as fact, then any reasonable person would have to conclude that there is nothing this group would not do to attain office. To my friends on the DTC that have not, nor ever, engaged in this behavior, thank you. The new faction in charge is unfortunately polluting the public discourse and not helping your organization, either.
The people of the 151st District and the Town of Greenwich deserve better.
I proudly stand by my record. I challenge the deflectors and distorters on the DTC to do the same.