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To the Editor:
On July 23, 2019, David Collins, columnist for The Day and an ardent critic of the Connecticut Port Authority (CPA), wrote that the CPA had purchased $3,000 of photographs from the daughter of Bonnie Reemsnyder, who had recently been elected to serve as the CPA’s chair. He said she should resign and, if she didn’t, Governor Lamont should remove her.
On the very next day, July 24, the governor issued a press release stating that he believed her actions “were inappropriate and unacceptable given the importance of this board,” and called for her resignation. The governor likely interpreted Collins’ column to mean that Bonnie, in her capacity as chairwoman, had caused the CPA to purchase her daughter’s work, and that was wrong.
On August 7 Collins wrote another column in which he reported that the former chairman of the CPA board had approved the transaction. He quoted an email from the then director of the port authority: “We need you or someone else on the finance committee to approve this purchase since Bonnie has recused from this transaction because Erin is Bonnie’s daughter.”
In his CT Examiner letters of October 16 and 24, 2023, Michael Miller attempts to promote the candidacy of Suzanne Thompson for Old Lyme tax collector by, in part, saying that Governor Lamont thought Bonnie was unethical and untrustworthy. This was a blatant mischaracterization of the governor’s press release and a reprehensible attack against a woman of unimpeachable character.
No-one who knows Bonnie, or observed her conduct as an Old Lyme selectwoman, can have any doubt as to her integrity or her scrupulous care with public money. This was particularly clear to me while I served on the town’s Board of Finance during her tenure. What’s more, I have known Bonnie for over 30 years and was impressed with her effectiveness as the Old Lyme First Selectwoman and, previously, as the director of the Old Lyme Children’s Learning Center. My son had a wonderful experience in the day care center and in its Before and After School program, as a direct result of Bonnie’s excellent administrative leadership skills.
Bonnie would make an outstanding tax collector for Old Lyme, and you should elect her on November 7.
Adam S. Burrows
East Lyme, CT