Submitted by Blaise Punturo, Greenwich
This is an open letter, and I’d like to address my fellow unaffiliated voters here in town.
I can’t speak for all of us. By definition, we’re a non-homogenous group.
Some might even call us contrarian. But if I had to guess, I would bet we have one thing in common: We’re a little bit tired of partisan bickering. We find it tedious and counterproductive.
Now, in the spirit of staying positive and solution-oriented, what if we turn that statement on its head, and try to express it as a positive rather than a negative? What do we get? We’d get something like this: Continuity of leadership creates results.
What do I mean by that? Well, year after year, we see how things go down in Washington DC. Be it Democrats or Republicans, one “team” declares victory, and rushes to get as much done as possible… before the pendulum shifts again and they get kicked out of office. There will always be voters who are swayed by “team loyalty,” and there will always be those seduced by the allure of the outsider, the New Broom, the fresh face.
But the fact remains: A state of constant chaos is not conducive to getting things done. And isn’t governing, at its most basic, about getting things done?
But, you say, surely local politics is different from national politics? You’re right; it can and should be. Local races often come down to a couple hundred votes. Local issues can be discussed and debated face-to-face with people you know: the people you meet for coffee, the people you run into at the gym.
And the decisions that get made at Town Hall have a real impact on our daily lives: our kids’ schools, the roads we drive on, the parks where we play, the local small businesses we know and love. Local politics is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.
That’s not to say that partisan bickering can’t happen here. It can, and it does. But we, the voters, have every reason to tune out the nonsense and focus our attention on getting things done. And we have every right to demand the same of our leadership here in town.
You may not realize that unaffiliated voters are the largest group of registered voters in Greenwich. In the coming local election this fall, we should put our numbers to work, and send a message about what we want to see.
For our town, there is a bright future full of possibility and promise waiting for us. As the largest – and, I would argue, the most rational — group of registered voters in Greenwich, let’s make the rational choice. Let’s tune out the background noise of partisan bickering, and re-elect Fred Camillo and Lauren Rabin — the team that has been quietly working to get results.