To the Editor:
I’ve just finished reading about twenty articles in The Day that have been submitted by the East Lyme Democrat candidates; you can too, as they’re relatively short reads that are spoken in great generalities. You can’t say that they come up short when it comes to sharing their vague ideas with the public; you only have to wonder where it’s been over the last two years as the town they purport to serve and care about has been found to be fraught with scandal after scandal.
Our small coastal town seems like it could be one out of a Bret Easton Ellis or even a Hubert Selby novel, what with the sex, lies, false arrests, inappropriate relationships with minors and destruction of evidence. However, it was the press that brought this information to us with absolutely no cooperation from the First Selectman; at one point, the CT Examiner filed a FOIA and Cunningham just flat out refused to honor the request.
All through the various scandals, the East Lyme Democrats’ social media was in constant rotation screaming about their supposed adversaries in national politics, even before the administration change in November. I was surprised that they did not allot a certain amount of the town budget to erecting a Coliseum, what with the Roman Circus they seemed to be operating online, yet never addressing the scandals affecting the town and sowing distrust towards any and every public town official.
The town’s public safety image was tarnished, with good reason, and we heard nothing from the elected officials we looked to for answers. As someone who works all over the state, suddenly people immediately recognized my town’s name, but it wasn’t for the reasons I would’ve hoped.
Then came the first tax increase, a much heftier hike than we had seen in recent past years. 2024 was no different. With the national election results not going their way, they were able to once again distract people from the ongoing lawsuits against the town by telling us that ‘they’ were destroying the country, and began to hold rallies at least once a month. At the height of their hypocrisy, they held a ‘Women’s Voices’ rally, all while paying the former police chief his salary at home while under investigation (with strong evidence) for beating his wife. I realize that these were part of a larger nationwide network of protests, but tact is necessary when you are dealing with such a sensitive issue in your own community.
Is it possible that this was all just a windfall, multiple scandals collapsing around the same time, befalling Cunningham and the Democrats in their supposed moment of glory, the first in 16 years in our town? Perhaps, however the lack of transparency and lack of strong leadership when the town needed it most has been on glaring display throughout this entire two year term. Due to the sickly low level of residents that voted in the 2023 election that Cunningham won by just 93 votes, most residents don’t realize that the First Selectman term has changed from two to four years. If this is what the first two years held for our town, with the sharp increases in taxes and overwhelming corruption, I shudder to think what the next four could hold if Cunningham is re-elected.
It’s time to put partisanship aside, realizing that although national politics are important, the most important issues are in our own community; these issues affect our neighbors, our children, our schools and our services. We need to look past personalities and party lines and focus on job performance; we need to get out and voice our concerns. A poet once stated that ‘in ceremonies of the horsemen, even the pawn must hold a grudge’, and although we may not all be pawns, this is our grudge to carry and our decision to make on November 4th.
Let’s vote for transparency, accountability, experience and the bright outlook for our town that we all deserve. My vote is with Anne Santoro.
William Delaney
East Lyme, CT