Voter's Guide - Fall 2009

Dear GuilfordPACT members,

One of the most powerful ways to advance the cause of GuilfordPACT is to ensure that individuals who support our mission are elected to key town leadership roles. In order to identify such individuals in the upcoming November 3, 2009 town election, we sent a questionnaire to all 17 candidates for public office (2 First Selectman candidates, 4 Board of Selectmen candidates, 6 Board of Education candidates, and 5 Board of Finance candidates) soliciting answers to the following three questions:

1. Do you support the construction of a new high school as approved by the Board of Education in 2008?
2. What will you do in your role on the B.O.E./B.O.S./B.O.F. to ensure drafting of a town & education budget which meets the needs of the town and schools of Guilford AND is likely to be approved by the voters in a referendum?
3. As things currently stand, the town and education budgets are growing at a rate which exceeds the growth of the grand list. In your role on the B.O.E./B.O.S./B.O.F., what steps will you take to address this growing gap between budget expenditures and tax revenues?

The candidates' responses are reproduced in their entirety in the attached GuilfordPACT voter's guide (see attachment), and also available online at www.guilfordpact.org/voters_guide.

The GuilfordPACT steering committee carefully reviewed all responses (with particular attention to Question 1) and identified three candidates who provided strong written support for the construction of a new Guilford High School. They are: Alan Meyers (Board of Education), Chris Moore (Board of Education), and Mike Sessine (Board of Selectmen).

We believe that based on the responses to the questions in the voter's guide, electing Alan, Chris and Mike will provide significant momentum for the construction of a new high school, and we plan an extensive get out the vote effort (email, phone banking, social networking) in support of their campaigns over the next week and a half.

More information on the get out the vote effort will follow. Please direct any comments concerning this email to the comment form at http://guilfordpact.org/voters_guide.

Sincerely,

GuilfordPACT Steering Committee

NOTE: the sample ballot contained within the voter's guide has a typo in it. A voter may choose 5 Board of Education candidates, not 4.