Don’t ‘waste time’ sending newbies to Hartford

Re-elect state Sens. Toni Boucher and Michael McLachlan, and state Reps. Stephen Harding and Duff.

Bethel knows the decent people listed above and they know us intimately — our local needs and what’s important to the people they serve. As Chairman of the Bethel Board of Education, I know how hard they have fought for quality, affordable education in the communities they represent. As parents and guardians, are you willing to replace Sen. Boucher with a 20-year-old, barely out of school himself, who has been chosen by Sen. Chris Murphy with his Washington money to unseat Sen. Boucher? He knows nothing about public education and its needs in Bethel nor in the other communities overseen by the Legislature’s Education Committee’s new Co-Chair, Toni Boucher. This would be a disastrous trade-off for our children.

The same goes for Sen. Mike McLachlan’s seat in the Senate. Replacing Mike with a former union chief will give us more of the same lack of sincere interest on the issues facing local towns, e.g. the Speaker of Connecticut’s House of Representatives is a AFSCME union leader — his union pays him $105,000 per year and the Speaker’s job pays him $47,000 — where do you think his loyalty lies? His cohorts petitioned for a declaration that said there was no conflict of interest in this arrangement. Ask our incumbent representatives how many times the Speaker championed their causes in a bipartisan way —— they will unanimously agree, seldom if ever!

Please vote to keep Boucher, Mclachlan, Harding and Duff in office. Connecticut cannot afford to have neophytes in their place. We do not need to waste time helping newbies understand the issues facing the state and our communities while they learn the ins and outs of Hartford’s dysfunctional politics. We will lose as newbies struggle to understand how to help fix Connecticut’s economic problems. Larry Craybas Bethel