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Greenwich Sentinel Endorsements for Local Races-Joe Kelly

November 3rd is fast approaching, and early voting this year means voting can begin as early as October 2, just 15 days from now.

Once again The Greenwich Sentinel offers its endorsement of the local candidates we feel best deserve your vote.  We do this in the spirit of providing information that will be helpful to voters as they decide who would best serve our collective common interests in the state legislature.

As we described in an earlier editorial, we’ve approached this exercise differently this year by organizing an Endorsement Board to independently arrive at our endorsement decisions. The Board was comprised of six Greenwich residents, chosen for their dedication to Greenwich, their individual acumen, their varying demographics, varying backgrounds and spectrum of political philosophies. The Endorsement Board includes two Republicans, two Democrats, and two Independent/Unaffiliated voters. 

They gathered and reviewed a variety of sources about all the candidates including education, responsibilities, and accomplishments in the public and private sectors, news articles, op-eds by the candidates, voting records, candidate profiles by third parties from previous elections, campaign websites and social media pages and campaign literature. The Board also prepared a list of questions for the candidates and conducted socially distanced interviews with those individual candidates who chose to participate.   

The Board met (virtually) multiple times over the period from August 26 through September 14. The ground rules were that the endorsements were to be made on people, not party, and by unanimous consensus or at least supermajority (i.e., 5 out of 6).  Members brought open minds, thoughtful questions, insightful analysis, and a light touch of humor to the task. The Endorsement Board was a small group of people coming together with complementary knowledge, skills, and experience – a real team.

All of the following endorsement decisions were made by the Board either unanimously or by supermajority vote, and each member of the Board fully supports them all. While it may seem cliché to say that all the candidates are exemplary, the Board felt that they truly are.

Joe Kelly (Republican)

Longtime Greenwich resident Joe Kelly is running to unseat one-term incumbent Democrat Steve Meskers for the position of State Representative serving the 150th District.  “Coach” Kelly, as he is often referred to, is a businessman and entrepreneur with a real estate and finance background and a long history of direct involvement in developing young people.  A member of the Greenwich Board of Education, Kelly coached youth soccer for 18 years, coached the Greenwich Youth Football Program, and for nine years coached the “outrageously successful” Greenwich High School rugby team.  He has the reputation of being an effective and high-energy team leader, a good listener who can work well with others to achieve common goals, and a hands-on contributor to the Greenwich community as member of the Amogerone Volunteer Fire Co. No. 1 (the oldest fire company in Greenwich), the Mead Point District association (President) and the Windrose Way Association.

The endorsement board was impressed with Kelly’s energy, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial approach to solving problems and driving change.  His principal legislative objective is to drive greater fiscal responsibility and better resource management at the state level. He is up-front about the need to address the elephant-in-the-room issue of municipal pension reform; his personal business experience turning around distressed businesses in need of restructuring leaves him no illusions about the difficulty of achieving that goal, but also gives him the insights, experience and skills to lead the charge.  Concerned about the negative consequences of political careerism, Kelly supports term limits with a recommendation of four terms (8 years) for state representatives.

Kelly’s opponent, Steve Meskers, is also a longtime Greenwich resident with a family history of hard work and giving back to the community, including a decade of service on the RTM where he served on the education (vice chair) and public works committees.  During his term as state representative, Meskers sponsored 24 bills concerning senior citizens’ quality of life and voted against the 2019 state budget because of concerns over the additional high-end property sales tax that would particularly impact Greenwich.  He has consistently expressed his concern over the state’s lethargic growth and its overreliance on Fairfield County as a revenue source.  Unfortunately, notwithstanding the opportunity provided by the combination of a Democrat majority in both the House and Senate and a Democrat governor, Meskers and his party were unable during his term to make progress addressing those issues and the other very serious issues facing our state.

The endorsement board appreciates and values Mesker’s contributions during his term, but in choosing to endorse Kelly, it felt that it would best serve the constituents of the 150th District to choose a candidate who would be more free to challenge the majority party in Hartford on pressing issues and existing policies that have been holding Connecticut back over the past number of years. 

Accordingly, The Greenwich Sentinel believes that the combination of an entrepreneurial drive which pushes hard to achieve desired goals in spite of opposition, and the collaborative and inspirational skill set of a highly successful coach, makes Joe Kelly the right player to put on the field in Hartford.

Endorsement Board Members

Anthony Turner, Co-Chair

Daniel FitzPatrick, Co-Chair

Stephanie Dunn Ashley

Emma Whitney Barhydt

Patricia Chadwick

Peter C. Negrea

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