New Haven Independent

Blumenthal (at center in photo; DaRos is at left) gazed at the Sound where a gigantic natural gas terminal known as Broadwater might have been built.

“You know I feel very passionate and moved about this race because if any person is responsible for saving Long Island Sound from Broadwater and from Islander East, it is Unk and the team that he has put together. And I think all of us as state officials no matter how hard we fought and I fought pretty hard on both those projects, we would not be in the position we are in today but for Unk DaRos and his team.”

This campaign marks the fifth for DaRos and Second Selectman Fran Walsh, a former principal of a public school that bears his name. They began in 1997, left office in 2003 and returned in 2007. They are joined on the ticket by Marianne Kelly, the town clerk and Joanne Cleary, the tax collector and Peter Banca, treasurer. DaRos filed election papers last month.

Looking around the porch, Blumenthal said “this is what it’s about. it is the best of politics; being involved with good people and great causes, not just on environmental issues, not just fighting Broadwater which he did relentlessly and tirelessly but also on fiscal issues and on energy and on community service.”

Other endorsements came from U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro who were unable to attend the event but sent letters.

Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz (pictured with Pam Knapp), who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination for governor, said she would work hard for DaRos’ reelection. She said the state registered 300,000 new voters in the 2008 presidential election. If she had one bit of advice for Branford Democrats, she said, it would be to “engage those new Democrats and those discerning unaffiliated voters [they make up the majority in Branford] who need a reason to be Democrats.”

She also praised DaRos for putting together a no tax increase budget ( actually there is a slight increase) “in this very difficult economic time. If you could bring that to the governor and the legislature … Let me tell you that would be a public service…”

State Sen.Ed Meyer spoke of DaRos’s “wonderful relationship with the state’s elected officials. He has a wonderful relationship with federal officials. Branford is I think the first in terms of the federal stimulus program. I think it has beaten the big cities, especially in transportation,” he said referring to more than $100 million in federal funds the town has received in Amtrak bridge and commuter railroad stimulus funds.

DaRos, he noted, meets weekly with the first selectmen of Guilford, Madison, Clinton to share in regional approaches for the towns.

Walsh said that if anybody had told him after he retired as a school principal that he would be running for a fifth term as second selectman, “I would have said they are crazy.” But he clearly loves what he is doing, and he has a special respect and fondness for DaRos ,he said.

Anthony Giardiello, the RTM’s Democratic majority leader, is DaRos’s campaign manager. Tootsie Laske, former town clerk and a popular vote getter, chairs the Unk Re-election Committee.

The organizers told folks to bring their “Unk” hats to the event. A number of them arrived with hats from different years. RTM member Gail Chapman-Carbone (pictured) was one of them.

In his talk, DaRos told the audience that when he and Fran Walsh returned to Town Hall in 2007 they were surprised “by the amount of turmoil that had been created in such a short period of time.” He was referring to former First Selectwoman Cheryl Morris’s two years in office.

“What was most striking was the morale of virtually every department,” he said. “And I think the only thing that held the town together was their professionalism. But their hearts certainly were not in the job. So I knew that had to be fixed and it was fixed very quickly so that we could start moving forward.”

“We also had to restore the integrity of the town as well as its reputation. We managed to do that.We still have some work to do on that. He praised the police department for reducing crime and for becoming a much more visible presence in town. As if on cue, a squad car drove by and everyone started laughing.

He was upbeat about a number of town projects, including finding a new home for the Senior Center and moving on the Atlantic Wire property, located in the heart of town.

“I want to make this a town that does not simply follow standards. I want it to be a town that sets the standards.”

###