Below is a Letter to the Editor from this week's Shelton Herald. If you'd like to have a letter to the editor run next week, email letters to brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
Contributed photoTo the Editor:
Drama and depletion is no way to run a city. The 30 years of this operating mode has landed Shelton in a situation where our quality of life has been diminished. If you look at our roads, our municipal buildings, you have to wonder what price tag we are facing in the future to repair this decay.
Our school system has been bled dry. Numerous lawsuits are looming that will hit taxpayers square in the nose. The city-run bus company is an embarrassment and is putting families in a state of stress every day. One only has to tune in to budget hearings and town meetings to experience the poor operating mode we are in.
How is all of this allowed to continue? The 30-year reign is out of gas and needs to end. When leadership spends time ruining good people’s lives instead of setting a vision and plan for progress, it is time for a change.
Change does not mean giving up our low tax rate. Shelton had a commitment to low taxes before this mayor and will have this same commitment after he is shown the door. We have a strong tax base and opportunities for well-planned development into the future.
New leadership will mean a vision and a plan versus scattershot development. It will mean a level playing field for business and investors in our town. It will mean tireless work for our residents, not a one-foot-out-the-door mayor running for governor or Mayor of Bridgeport. It will mean setting priorities for strategic investments that create a more sustainable and fiscally responsible future for Shelton. It will mean civility, working together and respect versus arrogance and abuse. It will mean qualified professional management. It will mean an eagerness to pursue all potential grants to fund improvement projects and not leaving money on the table while our town further decays. It will mean new energy, passion and opportunity for our town.
This November, voters will have an opportunity to chart a better path for our community, one that preserves our thriftiness but brings fresh opportunity and a new and better operating mode. I will be reaching out more officially in May to residents in every neighborhood to share more about who I am and what I want to see in our great city.
David Eldridge
Shelton