“Eighty-nine,” Trevor Crow said to the gathered Greenwich Democratic Town Committee members in Town Hall Wednesday night, letting the number hang in the air for a long moment.
“That is the number of votes we came close to winning in 2022 – out of 42,824 votes cast in a recount – a .01% differential,” she said, recalling the outcome of her 2022 challenge to Republican State Senator Ryan Fazio in the 36th district.
Crow, who previously ran for Tax Collecter in 2021, is seeking her party’s endorsement for a second chance to challenge Fazio.
Fazio was first elected in a special election in August 2021 to fill the unexpired term of Democrat Alex Kasser who resigned.
Kasser had defeated incumbent Republican Scott Frantz in 2018, becoming the first Democrat to win the spot in close to 100 years.
But at Wednesday’s packed DTC meeting, another Democrat seeking his party’s endorsement, Nick Simmons, was introduced.
Trevor Crow and Nick Simmons addressed the Democratic Town Committee on Jan 17, 2024. Photo: Leslie Yager
Crow and Simmons were each allotted seven minutes to tell the DTC about their qualifications and priorities.
Crow said that if she had won in 2022, there would be stronger support today for gun safety measures, mental health resources, and reproductive health resources.
“Two years ago my name was unknown. It was an uphill battle. I started late and didn’t know anyone or anything,” she said. “We used the Citizens Election program, which I supplemented by raising an additional $50,000 for our DTCs and our PACS to spend on our race. And District 36 was newly redistricted, subsequently becoming more Republican.”
Crow said she’d been a Greenwich resident for six years. She is a Certified Executive Coach, author, and for 20 years a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in private practice with a specialty in couples counseling.
She described a youth of figure skating and shared the analogy of repeatedly falling and picking herself up from the ice to illustrate her determination and hard work.
Trevor Crow and Nick Simmons addressed the Democratic Town Committee on Jan 17, 2024. Photo: Leslie Yager
After graduating Wellesley College in 1985 she worked in government bond sales and trading.
From there, Crow said, “I attended Harvard Business School where I learned that capitalism, business and entrepreneurship floats all boats. When business thrives, we all thrive.”
“Yet over the past 30 years, due to trickle-down economics I have watched our infrastructure crumble, addiction skyrocket and gun violence proliferate, while many of us are lonelier and more depressed and anxious than ever before.”
After Crow introduced her adult children who Zoomed in from Boston, she said the key issues she would focus on if elected were the high cost of living and housing shortage that make it difficult for young people to move to the area, as well as “our brutal and self-defeating unwillingness to support working parents and caregivers.”
Crow said despite having one of the best educated workforces in the country and nearly 90,000 unfilled jobs, it was important for Connecticut to create more housing and offer childcare support to attract young people.
She talked about reproductive healthcare and how women from other states come to Connecticut because it is “a safe state.”
“We must enshrine Roe into our state Constitution,” she added.
Crow ended her remarks by repeating the number, 89.
Mr. Simmons, whose wife and parents attended the meeting in person, said he’d spent 22 years in this area. before leaving to attend Harvard.
While he lives over the line in Westover section of Stamford with his wife and three-week old baby, Simmons said he considered Greenwich home.
One of five siblings all born at Greenwich Hospital, he said his parents still lived in the house where he grew up, and listed siblings, including Caroline who is the Mayor of Stamford, who had returned to live in the area.
Simmons said his 12 year career in public service at local, state and federal levels, started when he was a 7th grade math teacher in Harlem where students endured everything from homelessness, to abuse to hunger. At that school he rose to become principal at the age of 26 – one of the youngest principals in the state of New York.
“We wrapped our whole arms around our students and we saw them thrive,” he said.
He attended Yale undergrad from 2007-2011, and then did a joint degree program at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School from 2016 to 2019.
Mr. Simmons joined Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont’s administration, where he has worked for the past three years.
Today he is the Governor’s deputy chief of staff, helping oversee nearly 10 state agencies and state offices, implementing billions of dollars of spending on housing, train stations, and parks across the state.
Simmons said while working for the Governor, he took a break to work as a senior advisor in the Biden administration overseeing school reopenings across the country during Covid-19.
Explaining his reason for wanting to run for office he said growing up in Greenwich had inspired him and that he wanted the district to be an incredible place to be for his and other families.
“But I have to say, having been in Hartford for the last three years, Greenwich is often disregarded,” Simmons said. “We’re often thought of as this rich town on the side, as if we don’t need investment in our schools, our parks or our train station.”
He noted that Greenwich was the 10th biggest town in the state, had one of the biggest school districts in the state, and had one of the top-5 busiest train stations in the state.
“We deserve and need the investment to keep our town great and thriving for the next 50 years,” he said. “And the reason we haven’t been getting it is failure in the Senate. Ryan Fazio has no leverage. He doesn’t understand how to get things done or he just simply doesn’t care.
He credited State Rep Rachel Khanna (D-149), State Rep Hector Arzeno (D-151) and State Rep Steve Meskers (D-150) with “turning the tide in Hartford.”
“And this is the year we’re going to finish the job and finally for the first time in the history of the town send a fully-blue delegation to Hartford.”
Simmons said the first thing he would do in the Senate would be to work with the other members of the delegation to bring back at least five times as much funding from the state as the town has been receiving.
“That’s what we need to rebuild Central Middle School and finally revitalize and build our train station,” he continued. “I think I have that experience to get that done uniquely.”
Simmons said he was in the room with the Governor when he passed the biggest tax cut in the history of Connecticut.
“I was in the room with the Governor when we built the economic agenda and investments that resulted in more families moving to Connecticut than in any time in the history of our state. And I was in the room with the Governor when we created one of the country’s best assault rifle gun control bills. And I was in the room with the Governor when we created one the nation’s best bills to increase access to abortion.”
Lastly, he said, “I was in the room with the Governor when we counted up the votes for those bills and saw that Ryan Fazio was one of the handful of Senators to vote against both bills.”
“We need to make sure that every voter in this district knows that Ryan Fazio voted against a bill that would prevent someone from walking down Greenwich Avenue with an assault rifle,” Simmons said. “And we need to make sure that every voter knows that it was Ryan Fazio who during one of the biggest attacks on women’s rights in the history of this country, Ryan Fazio voted against a bill to expand abortion rights.”
“I would love the privilege of fighting beside you as your candidate for the 36th district,” he added.
Trevor Crow and Nick Simmons addressed the Democratic Town Committee on Jan 17, 2024. Photo: Leslie Yager
Because the 36th district includes western and northern parts of Stamford, and much of New Canaan, as well as Greenwich, the Greenwich DTC does not determine which candidate is endorsed.
Rather, at a convention in May Greenwich delegates will join delegates from New Canaan and Stamford. The candidate with the most votes at the convention will be endorsed, though under state law there will still be the opportunity for a primary challenge to the endorsed candidate.
But first, at a March meeting the DTC will vote to select delegates to attend the convention.
DTC chair Joe Angland said it would be logical for people to know who a given candidate for delegate would endorse.
Typically the candidates for State Senate in the 36th district have been Greenwich residents.
And for a century prior to Democratic Senator Alex Kasser, the Senator in the 36th district was always a Republican, with the exception of Horace Allen Barton who held the office from 1931-1932 during the Depression.
In 2010 Barton’s grand daughter Nancy Barton ran for the office as a Democrat, but was defeated by then Republican incumbent Scott Franz.