Democratic caucus

WINSTED — It was the Democratic Party’s turn to make nominations for this November’s municipal elections at its caucus on Tuesday, July 26.Thirty registered Democrats attended the caucus, which was led by moderator Steven Sedlack.At the meeting, current Selectmen George Closson, Michael Renzullo and Mayor Candy Perez were all given the nod to run again.Former Mayor Mary Ann Welcome and current Board of Education member James DiVita were also nominated for the Board of Selectmen.For the Board of Education, current member Susan Hoffnagle was nominated for a four-year term, and newcomer Monique Abru was nominated for the other open four-year term.Resident Brian Shaugnessy was nominated for a two-year term.Shelia Sedlack was nominated to run for town clerk once again, while James Barber and Mary Renzullo were nominated to run as town constables.At the beginning of the meeting, party member Glenn Zeh gave the platform speech.“The theme for our platform this year is building community,” Zeh said. “What we mean by that is that we want to start a process where members of each group in the community begin to start to converse with one another. We want to see building going on, not only physically, but relationship-wise. We want to find ways to get over the humps we have been bumping our heads against for years.”Many of the nominated candidates made speeches to the audience.“There’s been a lot of articles in the paper about many of the negative things that have happened in the past few years, but I look at the opportunities that we have here in the community,” Closson said. “I think we have a real opportunity to go forward because we have a new school superintendent coming to town, a new finance director with the Board of Education and a new town manager. “With the group that has been nominated, hopefully we can all get elected and make these things happen and have a much more civil environment. Instead of the Board of Education and the Board of Selectmen going at each other, they can work together to reach goals.”Welcome thanked the party for the nomination.“I think this is a group that is level headed and are not screamers,” Welcome said. “These are people who listen to what other people talk about and take what they say into consideration. It’s very imperative that we work as a team and we get elected as a team. Let’s do this for our community.”Hoffnagle said it is a tough year to be running for a seat on the Board of Education.“We made some unpopular decisions, however, I strongly believe that they were the right decisions,” Hoffnagle said. “I am proud of the fact that we have a better relationship with The Gilbert School than we have had in the past. I think the overall makeup of the Board of Education has some very good people. If we can get some new people on, we can do well.”