Government

Election 2023: Lara Kelly Announces Candidacy for Board of Education

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New Canaan’s Lara Kelly has announced that she will seek a seat on the Board of Education. The Republican will seek party backing at the GOP Caucus on July 25. We put some questions to Kelly ahead of the Caucus, which is open to all registered New Canaan Republicans. 

Here’s our exchange. ***

New Canaanite: What is your background professionally and in terms of living and volunteering here in New Canaan? Lara Kelly: I am a mother to four children: Caroline (13), Spencer (9), Addison (6), and James (3). 

I grew up in Connecticut and moved back to New Canaan in 2019.

Dionna Carlson

Election 2023: Republican Candidates for First Selectman Debate Affordable Housing Strategies

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New Canaan missed out on a chance to find an additional four years of relief from a state affordable housing law because the town wasn’t prepared, according to one Republican seeking party backing for the municipality’s highest elected office. 

The town’s moratorium under the widely discussed law known by its statute number, 8-30g, “lapsed” because “frankly, I don’t think we were prepared to file that moratorium, which I’m really concerned about,” Kimberly Norton said during a debate with fellow GOP first selectman candidates Dionna Carlson and incumbent Kevin Moynihan last week. “It’s a very long process,” Norton continued at the July 18 debate, organized and moderated by the Republican Town Committee and held at Carriage Barn Arts Center. “It could have been ready to go. It could have been in the pipeline.”

Though the press was barred from attending the debate, a video of the first selectman debate was posted Thursday to YouTube. In addition to affordable housing, topics included dysfunction on the Board of Selectmen and improving cell service in New Canaan.

Board of Education

Election 2023: Matt Wexler Announces Candidacy for Board of Education [Q&A]

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New Canaan’s Matt Wexler has announced that he will seek a seat on the Board of Education. The Republican will seek party backing at the GOP Caucus on July 25. We put some questions to Wexler ahead of the Caucus, which is open to all registered New Canaan Republicans. 

Here’s our exchange. ***

New Canaanite: What is your background professionally and in terms of living and volunteering here in New Canaan? Matt Wexler: I have lived in town with my wife and two children since 2011 and am a graduate of New Canaan High School.

Amy Murphy Carroll

Election 2023: Democrats Put Up Three for BOE; Murphy Carroll Accepts First Selectman Nomination

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A Democrat seeking election to the Board of Education on Tuesday night described New Canaan as “a large community with a ton of tiny communities within it.”

For Lauren Connollly Nussbaum and her husband Matt, town residents for 10 years whose three daughters—ages 8, 10 and 13—attend South and Saxe Middle Schools, those communities include one in special education that they’ve found “remarkable and humbling,” she said during the Democratic Caucus, held at Town Hall. 

Other communities “may be in the sports world, in a house of worship, that may be in the Beautification League,” Connolly Nussbaum told 75-plus Democrats in attendance . 

She continued: “Wherever people in New Canaan are, we are building communities. And that is what I want to do on the Board of Education. Continue to build community and include everyone.”

Connolly Nussbaum added, “I feel ready. I feel nervous. I feel excited.

Government

Election 2023: Maria Naughton Announces Re-Election Bid for Town Council [Q&A]

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New Canaan’s Maria Naughton, an educator who has served on the Town Council for four years, this week announced her candidacy for re-election to the legislative body. We put some questions to Naughton ahead of the July 25 Republican caucus, where she will seek party backing. Here’s our exchange. ***

New Canaanite: What is your background professionally and in terms of living and volunteering here in New Canaan? Maria Naughton: After working for several years at GE Capital in the Aviation Services arm of the company, I decided to shift my career path into the field of education.