Reprinted from The Trumbull Times © Copyright 2009
April 16, 2009

To the Editor:

It's official, there is a First Selectman race commencing in Trumbull.

I'm writing in response to Diane Wheeler's letter in your April 2 edition.

Candidly, Ms. Wheeler is providing your readers with misrepresentations regarding resolutions introduced by Town Council representatives to scale back the $73 million renovation of Trumbull High School. The goal was to focus on academic needs first, rather than a stand-alone swimming pool building, now projected to cost $7.6 million, and a new auditorium with a doubled seating capacity.

Ms. Wheeler characterizes the Republican plan as a "bare-bones" renovation. She apparently does not understand that the $73 million renovation is currently the largest and most costly high school renovation in the State of Connecticut. She also fails to understand that the Republican proposal would have kept the same state reimbursement rate.

Our plan would have eliminated $5 million for a new swimming pool, and by reducing the number of seats in the auditorium to a maximum of 750 (an increase of 25%), substantial savings would have been realized.

Ms. Wheeler and the Baldwin team think differently. This kind of thinking can explain why taxes and town spending have increased more than 50% in the seven years since Mr. Baldwin took office.

Beyond this, Ms. Wheeler's letter becomes the epitome of political hypocrisy. Her letter begins by criticizing "negative political attacks," and in the next paragraphs she launches one of her own on Domenic Monaco and his wife, Suzanne Burr-Monaco.

Wheeler levels the scurrilous charge that Ms. Burr-Monaco was not putting her time in as Town Clerk while keeping a part-time position with the Trumbull Board of Education, to the detriment of Trumbull taxpayers. The truth is that Suzanne Burr-Monaco received approvals from both Ralph Iassogna and Ray Baldwin before taking office. This was a temporary, part-time assignment which lasted six months until the end of the school year.

Not only did she actually work all of the part-time hours in addition to the full-time hours as Trumbull Town Clerk, but the Town Clerk's office had expanded hours at least one Saturday per month during her term as clark. In addition, during this transition period, Burr-Monaco refused Town Clerk health benefits, representing a savings of $1,600 a month to Trumbull during this period.

A primary reason why Mr. Iassogna approved this work scenario was because Ms. Burr-Monaco was the only school system employee certified to train beginning teachers. A school system is required to have at least one such certified person in the district, or they risk sanctions from the state.

Ms. Wheeler's letter may be politically motivated. While taking aim at Mr. Monaco's wife, she fails to acknowledge that she is a Democrat and that her brother was Chief of Staff to disgraced former Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim. Ms. Wheeler has a responsibility to get her facts straight. In the future, I hope she will have a better understanding of the facts before she takes her pen in hand.

Thomas Kelly, secretary
Trumbull Republicans