October 27th Newsletter

Hello!

When I was young, my parents taught me to not only act with integrity and ethics, but impressed upon me the importance of ensuring that my actions did not give the impression of a lack of integrity or ethics. The strongest criticism I ever heard my Uncle Marv make was the observation that an acquaintance was “loose with the truth.” Even as a child, I knew that this was a very serious charge.

During this campaign, I observed my opponent, her colleagues and her campaign team break certain rules and give the perception of impropriety on multiple occasions:

·    Campaign t-shirts were worn by my opponent and other Town employees while working in their official capacity as Town employees on Family Day (the supervision of which was part of her regular job, for which she is on the Town payroll).

·    Campaign literature was placed directly in residents’ mailboxes (a violation of federal postal law) rather than doing the extra work of going to the resident’s door, knocking, and affixing the campaign literature to the doorknob if no one was home.  It is so much quicker (although illegal) to just drive down the street and put the material directly into the resident’s personal mailbox.

·    Attendance at volunteer ad hoc committee meetings between 9 and 11:30 on regular workdays giving the appearance of doing volunteer work on Town time.

·    Colleagues “liking” campaign posts from work social media accounts (Tri Town Youth Services)

·    Opposition party posting of multiple defamatory comments about me on social media, without correction,  even when shown proof of the truth and after being asked to do so.

·    Mixing of private, political and volunteer activities on Town property and time.

Sometimes, cutting corners is the easier and quicker approach to accomplishing a goal. While not perfect, I work hard to avoid both impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.  As your First Selectwoman, I commit to you that I will be guided by a compass of integrity and ethics. This compass will impact how I notice meetings, how minutes are recorded, how bids are asked for, reviewed and selected, how board members are chosen, and how additional responsibilities of the office, large and small, are carried out.

Warm regards,

Katie