GOSHEN — State Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30) announced Oct. 20 that he is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Chris Murphy (D-5). With the announcement (made at the town hall in his home town of Goshen), Roraback ended months of speculation over whether he would try for the Republican nomination for the 5th Congressional District, which includes the Northwest Corner (including Torrington) and extends east to the cities of Waterbury, New Britain and Meriden, and south to Danbury.Roraback delivered a brisk speech explaining why he has decided to run.“I’m an optimist,” he said. “I believe in the essential goodness of the American people.“But we are at a critical point. Unemployment is high, despair is growing.”He noted that public approval of Congress is very low. “Sad to say, it’s with good reason. “The common-sense pragmatism of a New England Republican is in short supply.”In a phone interview Sunday, Oct. 23, Roraback laid out his positions.On the economy, and specifically about the “stimulus” spending that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats have used to try and revive the national economy, Roraback declined to be a Monday morning quarterback.“I don’t think it is of great value to look back and spend time critiquing failed policies.”“The American appetite for stimulus spending is in short supply,” he continued, especially when people do not see tangible benefits.He said that as he travels the Northwest Corner asking if citizens believe “the money Washington spends reaches your house or community, very few people say ‘yes.’”On taxes and tax reform: “We should be open to any plan that has the twin virtues of simplicity and fairness. Government has to be very cautious about raising taxes in a time of economic duress.”He noted that,“It’s hard to love jobs and hate the people who create them. We have to recognize that the people who make decisions [about creating jobs], a lot of them are on the sidelines because they are unsure of what the future holds.”On the announcement Sunday that U.S. forces would be out of Iraq by the end of the year: “It’s regrettable that the administration is unable to solidify a relationship with the Iraqi leadership such that soldiers there could be given a basic package of protections, which is vital to the mission.”On energy policy, Roraback began with the furor over the federal Energy Department’s loan to Solyndra, a green energy company that went bankrupt. “How can you not be totally disillusioned by that? I’m a big believer in clean and alternative energy, but it has to be market-based, able to stand on its own two feet. Government can play a role as a catalyst but it can’t be a crutch.“There has to be a balance between responsible environmental protection and taking advantage of domestic sources of supply. The alternative is further dependence on foreign sources.”On man-made climate change: “There is ample evidence to suggest that both human and natural factors are having an inpact on climate change.”And on so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation: “The issue has to be looked at globally. We should be very careful about asking America to be the leader” and not apply the same standards to the rapidly growing economies of India and China.Asked if the federal government has become too big and intrusive, Roraback replied, “The framers intended some limitations on the reach of federal powers. We have allowed the federal government to grow in a way which is burdensome.”And on himself: “If people are looking for a center-right person, whose record shows he is in step with the vast majority of people in the 5th District, then I am your candidate.”It’s a crowded field. Also running for the Republican nomination are Justin Bernier, Lisa Wilson-Foley, Mark Greenberg and Mike Clark.On the Democratic side, there are four candidates: Chris Donovan (speaker of the state House of Representatives), Elizabeth Esty, Dan Roberti and Mike Williams.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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