To the Editor:
Despite the fact that early voting has started, my concerns are still worthy of expressing in the hopes that whoever has not yet voted, as well as whoever is elected to the Town Council on November 4, 2025 consider the big picture.
Ours is a town whose Democratic Town Committee (DTC) had been the envy of many other Town Committees. It had represented a town who had their small ‘d’ democratic act together, but has now fallen from grace due to cliques, cabals, and in-fighting.
Formerly the Groton DTC nominated candidates who believed their job was to represent the citizens using Roberts Rules of Order to ensure meetings followed the standards used since 1876. They didn’t minimize public comment, were not a rubber stamp to the unelected Town Manager, and were not hiding behind frequent points of order that at times resulted in potential FOI violations and enormous legal bills due to questionable advice from the town attorney. But sadly those acts describe the majority of our current council.
While it is in the Town Charter that the newly elected councilors shall choose one of its members to be Chairman of the Council and be recognized as the Mayor, perhaps this clause should reassessed during the next charter review to consider changing it to the Chair being the candidate who received the highest vote count to better represent the people rather than an internal popularity contest.
When you fill in the oval of your chosen candidate carefully consider the candidates who have chosen to abrogate their duty and push the budget through with barely a glance; operated in the shadows resulting in expensive FOI hearings; and changed the rules to minimize public comment.
Consider voting for Portia Bordelon who was censored for trying to get to the bottom of an issue that other councilors did not want discussed, and David McBride who abstained. All the other councilors at that time voted to censure based on misleading documents of questionable origin.
At this point I’d take a few untested candidates, including a Democratic write-in, Jim Gustavson, and a few Groton Independents who have proven track records of transparency and open government. I believe we can get Groton back on track so long as David McBride and Portia Bordelon are leading the way.
Anne-Marie Foster
Groton, CT