New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Melissa Schlag was ‘rare, rare gem’
Politician, passionate environmentalist dies at 46
HADDAM — The loss of the town’s former first selectman and Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Melissa Schlag is being felt throughout the small, rural community she called home, where she was known as a “deeply principled” woman who was wise beyond her years.
Schlag, first selectman from 2013-15 and a climate advocate for New Havenbased Save Our Sound, lost her four-year battle with breast cancer Friday. She was 46.
Friend and neighbor Tanja Moriarty said Schlag leaves a “huge, huge vacuum. She was tenacious and very focused. She wanted openness and fairness in town government to a point where she would get pushback. She was all about fairness and democracy.”
The University of Connecticut graduate made headlines across the country in the summer of 2018, when, while a selectman, she began to take a knee at government meetings.
Schlag said at the time she was motivated primarily by President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, during which he denied Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
“I don’t kneel because I hate my country, I kneel because I love my country. I don’t kneel to disrespect veterans or the flag, I kneel to respect what they fought so hard for. Without that, we have nothing and they fought for nothing and we’ve lost everything,” Schlag said at the time.
Moriarty said her friend was an old soul with almost superhero tendencies. “There’s nothing she couldn’t do. She’s the MacGyver of women — a rare, rare gem.”
She was very active up until about a month and a half ago, said her longtime partner, Ed Schwing, editor of the Haddam Bulletin.
She joined the local news outlet in 2011 as a graphic designer, then became a journalist and advertising manager.
For years, she was a fixture at Board of Selectmen and other meetings, video recording proceedings, and writing up stories about what had transpired to keep residents abreast of goings-on in this town with a population of about
8,200.
Moriarty happened upon a small sign near her property Monday, which surprised and pleased her — a simple cardboard sign with the message “Thank you, Melissa,” written in red lettering with a heart in the center.
“She was a good woman and a better friend,” said Haddam Selectman Sean Moriarty, Tanja Moriarity’s husband and a former Middletown police captain who said he will miss Schlag’s smile and sense of humor.
He called Schlag “incredible, energetic, funloving, outgoing and extremely caring.”
Every year, residents hold a ceremony of remembrance for those they have lost at Haddam Meadows State Park on Route 154. Robin Spencer-Klimaszewski goes every year to pay respect to her family members. Sunday, she folded a paper into a simple vessel and wrote “Melissa Schlag. S.S. Haddam” on it.
A 30-second-long video Spencer-Klimaszewski posted on Facebook shows these tiny watercraft being placed gently into the waters of the Connecticut
River, forming a long, drifting line, moving in the current toward Old Saybrook.
“I made the boat, floated it down the river for her, and it’s headed to Long Island Sound, which she loved,” she said.
“She has done more — environmentally and politically speaking — than a person twice her age,” said Tanja Moriarty, former selectman and current member of the Haddam Board of Assessment.
During her time as an elected official, Schlag focused heavily on open government and a greener municipal environment, according to her four-year employer, Save the Sound. Schlag led the organization’s youth engagement effort, communications support for the climate program, engaging in community and legislative education and outreach efforts, and supporting all elements, according to its website.
Schlag brought her “quick mind and sharp wit, turn of phrase, and political acumen to every project she touched. Her conviction, curiosity, and willingness to share her deep knowledge made Melissa a natural convener in her work with youth climate activists and a mentor to our policy and global interns,” according to Save the Sound.
Prior to that, Schlag was a businesswoman, running her own home repair, property management and caretaking business.
Schlag helped countless people — a natural trait, friends said.
“She had such a huge heart. She would help anybody — to the point of her own exhaustion. She never wanted accolades. She was one of the most private, most humble people that I’ve known, yet did so much for the greater good,” Tanja Moriarty said.
Schlag would volunteer to help with community projects on a routine basis. If she saw an effort she believed in, Schlag would pitch in immediately.
The Spencer family owns the well-known Saybrook Road landmark, the Shad Shack, which, up until recently, was in a state of disrepair. Last September, Schlag spearheaded a work party to clean up the grounds and rebuild the structure.
“If it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have gotten as far as it did with the restoration,” Spencer-Klimaszewski said. “She did a lot for our town.”
Schlag enjoyed her flower garden and was devoted to her cat, Spencer-Klimaszewski said. “She liked to watch the wildlife in her
backyard, especially the deer.”
Schwing and Schlag loved to travel the world, and made trips to countries in Europe, including Belgium and France.
Moriarty recalled the time he and his wife met up with Schlag in Amsterdam. “It was nice to spend time and be friends — not always be involved in politics; to unwind and be not so engaged.”
Schlag was instrumental in stopping the state of Connecticut from swapping 87 acres of privately owned land on Walkley Hill Road with 17 acres at Eagle Landing State Park in the late 2000s, he said. She organized a group, which went by the name “Stop the Swap,” whose supporters sought to prevent land grabs by the state to give to private developers for commercial uses.
“The laws changed because of her,” Sean Moriarty said. “She really put Haddam on the map,” because of all the elected officials she knew, whom Schlag eventually got involved in local issues.
“The state realized we had a lot of potential here. She fostered that,” Sean Moriarty said.
Schlag was very globally minded, and was particularly interested in genealogy, doing ancestry charts for her family: “connecting dots from the past,” Tanja Moriarty said.
Even while ailing, Schlag sustained a demanding schedule. “She ignored the cancer and just kept going. She did not let it get in front of her,” Tanja Moriarty said.
“It was clear to anyone who encountered her that she put 100 percent of herself into all her passions,” Save the Sound said on its Facebook page. “In everything, she was a fierce and tireless advocate for the environment, for transparency, and for free speech.”
Once Schlag began to dip her toe in politics and become involved in town issues, “she just started to bloom. You couldn’t hold her back,” Tanja Moriarty said. “She always joked that it was my fault she got into politics. In 2007, we created the Better Haddam Party. She was our secretary. She said, ‘I don’t know what
I’m doing, but I’ll do it.’
“That was her style — she was a can-do. There was nothing she wouldn’t try. She succeeded at almost everything she did, but humbly, never wanting accolades. She was embarrassed to have praise. She’d always deflect it,” Tanja Moriarty said.
The family suggests donations be made to Save The Sound/CFE at savethesound.org/donate.