David Collins: Bullet vote for Groton Councilor Portia Bordelon on Tuesday
Sep. 9—An old friend whom I have not seen for a long time reached out recently with what I presumed was a message from her political associates, members of the Groton Democratic Town Committee, pertaining to Tuesday's Town Council primary.
It was actually less a message and more a simple smear of Portia Bordelon, the sitting Groton councilor whom the town committee denied a nomination for reelection, overturning a longtime courtesy to endorse incumbents who want to run again. She successfully petitioned for the primary.
In this case, the party was trying to shut down, and I suppose shut up, an outspoken councilor who most recently became a thorn in their side by breaking with her fellow Democrats — the party holds all nine seats on the council — to become the only voice in opposition to the controversial and failing Mystic Oral School project.
This is apparently great heresy for the other councilors who wholeheartedly endorsed the massive project proposed by someone with a criminal record for bribing public officials and no suitable credentials for developing what he was proposing. Not only did they pick him — two councilors were on the selection committee that chose him over a much more qualified candidate — but then they agreed to a deal in which they took responsibility in writing for changing the zoning of the property, which of course they can't do.
The lawsuit promises to be epic, and expensive.
The town manager, who should have been held responsible for this mess, was instead granted an extension of his contract by the council. They will need him no doubt to oversee their legal defense and continue to stonewall Freedom of Information Act requests from the news media and outraged neighbors.
Bordelon, the delegate from the town committee told me, is willful and independent-minded, which were presented as negatives but which seem to me to be great attributes for a councilor. And then there were the personal insults, which I'll skip here.
Nothing I heard made me any less enthusiastic about Bordelon's candidacy.
The other interesting thing about Groton Democrats I learned over our coffee date is that some in the party seem to be influenced a lot by town geography, with some City of Groton residents believing they should have more influence than people in the rest of the town, since the big employers and taxpayers are in the city.
It's true that the Town Council seemed surprisingly tone deaf to the loud and continuing agitation about the proposed Oral School project from neighbors. It's as almost if the party made the calculation that Mystic voters don't matter, that they could approve an enormous, unpopular project in that part of the town, as long as it would generate more tax revenue for everyone else.
I hope Bordelon proves this political strategizing wrong, when no doubt lots of Mystic voters turn out to vent their outrage of what was being foisted on them, an overwrought development by someone without relevant experience and a troubling criminal past.
But every town voter, not just people who live in the vicinity of the proposed project, should be alarmed at the way Groton Democrats who run the town behaved here.
The best way to do that is give Bordelon, the outspoken biracial woman who was punished, denied the benefit of a longstanding policy giving incumbents a right to run again, a resounding win Tuesday.
It's easy. Just vote for her, let the other nine on the ballot fend for themselves. Eight of them will make it on to the November ballot anyway, even if Bordelon wins big.
If enough people bullet vote, cast their ballots only for Bordelon, she'll rocket to the top of the list of primary winners.
I can think of more than one of the other councilors I'd like to see knocked out of the running Tuesday.
First, there is the chairman of the town committee, Conrad Heede, one of the councilors who sat on the panel that chose the unqualified developer. Heede wrote in a subsequent email to the town manager that they should stop promoting the project, not because of the developer's troubling criminal past but because the opposition was organized and a political obstacle.
I would also like to see voters reject David McBride, New London's finance director. The New London charter requires him, as a department head, to live in New London. I find it especially arrogant to not only ignore that requirement, with the acquiescence of the city's mayor, but then to rub everyone's nose in it by running for office in another town.
We'll know by Wednesday who gets left behind. There can be another thinning of the herd in November.
Let's hope that Bordelon is way ahead. It's a good chance for all voters to reward qualities like willful, outspoken and independent-minded.
This is the opinion of David Collins.
