Jacey Wyatt, a businesswoman and former super model, has made it official: She will again run for First Selectwoman on her own third party ticket. She made the announcement on the Branford Eagle’s most recent BCTV television program.
Wyatt, 44, ran in 2013 on the Branford Independent Voters party, a party she created, and she garnered 383 votes for first selectwoman and 704 votes for the Board of Education. This time around she expects to do better. She currently serves on the Parks and Open Space Commission.
“I did qualify in my signatures and I am running for first selectwoman and I am looking forward to it,” she told the BVTV viewing audience. To qualify, she needed to collect 78 signatures for the first selectman’s spot from any registered Branford voter. She gathered most of the signatures at a tag sale in her front yard, she said.
“We are all good. I will be ready to run for the RTM in the first district, the Board of Education and for first selectman in Branford.
Three Ticket Lines
“People ask me why would you run for so many positions. Why not? I would be just as effective on the RTM or on the Board of Education or as first selectwoman. I am giving the public just as I did two years ago the option.”
During the Eagle’s television show, we asked what the difference her 383 votes had on the 2013 first selectman’s race, a race that pitted Democrat Andy Campbell and his running mate Bruce Storm against Republican Jamie Cosgrove and his running mate Joe Higgins Jr. Cosgrove beat Campbell handily, drawing 4,484 votes to Campbell’s 2,795.
“When we watched the numbers come in at our campaign house in 2013, we were noticing that Democrats were really voting for me and for Storm.” The expectation was that if Campbell lost, he would fill the third selectman’s seat as a member of the minority party.
Instead, Storm, a former superintendent of schools, received more votes than Campbell on the Democratic ticket and Storm became the third selectman. Wyatt believes Democratic voters “voted for me and Storm. That is how Bruce Storm became third selectman,” she said. Of course, it is also entirely possible that Storm, a well-known figure in town, gathered the votes on his own.
When she ran two years ago as a virtual unknown, she said it took a long time to get the signatures she needed. This time around it took only a week.
Given the number of votes Wyatt had in 2013, the likelihood she would take the first selectman’s post is negligible. “So what is it you are trying to accomplish?” we asked.
Following In Dan Cosgrove’s Footsteps
“The reason I am doing it is that I am not going to be voted in on either the Republican or Democratic side so I am an independent. I want the voters to have an opportunity to vote independent in Branford. You know Jamie Cosgrove’s grandfather did it,” she said of the legendary Dan Cosgrove, who founded the Taxpayer Party and ran on it. He became the third selectman. “The Taxpayer Party,” she said “was a third party,” she reminded BCTV’s viewers.
When Jamie Cosgrove was growing up in Branford, Dan Cosgove was the powerful leader of the 12th District Democratic Central Committee, a position he held for more than 20 years. Dan Cosgrove became a passionate Democrat in 1939 and remained one for 50 years, until 1989 when he formed the Taxpayer Party.
“He wasn’t going to run as a Republican or a Democrat (even though he once ruled the Democratic Party in Branford and in the state Senate’s 12th district). He decided to go Independent, too. He started a new party. So I am doing this now, some 30 years later,” Wyatt said.”
Like Dan Cosgrove, she seemed to be saying that she, too, wants to be the “independent person represented on the ballot. I am working hard to make sure the public gets that opportunity.”
Branford has far more unaffiliated voters than either Democrats or Republicans, the Eagle said. With that she Wyatt grabbed her purse and took out the documentation. “The last time we did this … 55 percent of the town of Branford was unaffiliated,” she said. “The unaffiliated group is huge; it is the largest group in the town.” (It is also the group both Republican and Democratic candidates tend to woo.)
How Is Government Working Now?
“How do you think the current government is working? What has changed from the prior Democratic administration?” the Eagle asked.
“What I am finding now, and one of the reasons I am doing this again,” she said is that “I am just not happy with what I am seeing.” She is concerned, she said, about the helter-skelter approach to development in the town, citing the recent Sterling Ridge development effort in the heart of the town’s historical district. She said she is deeply opposed to this development at this location.
She says she is all for a Costco but not at Exit 56 where it may wind up. The Planning and Zoning Commission approved a Planned Development District for the area last month. But nothing happens until Inland Wetlands votes. (Costco is expected to submit an application to Inland Wetlands next month.) Wyatt said Exit 53 is the place for Costco but to have gotten it there, a southbound exit ramp on I‑95 or some other configuration was necessary.
“The land at Exit 53 is an incredible division of land that could all be put together if everyone started to work together to build this thing correctly. If I were in Jamie’s seat in the last couple of years, I would have worked everybody at the state level to get it done.” State Rep. Lonnie Reed tried that approach for many months but in the end the various owners held out. The Eagle noted that Cosgrove ran in 2013 on a platform to bring Costco to Exit 56.
If Wyatt were first selectwoman she said she would return Branford to one aspect of its history, the days of yore when the town had many seaside hotels and was a beloved summer vacation destination.
“I want a full master plan for Branford,” she said, “Not just one project here and another project there. And we need an architectural review board. Guilford has one.”
She said that Cosgrove wanting Costco at exit 56 is a lot like Cosgrove wanting a senior-community center at Church Street. Church Street is not the place she would have chosen. “I don’t really know if I want it in that flood zone. To me I think it is not the best location…. It is not the worst plan I have seen but at the same time I don’t think this is really where it needs to be.”
“What is the cost to put it there? Will it cost $5 million to put our seniors there? What is the cost to the town? Somebody needs to be clear about this. How much will these buildings cost the town?”
As for a building for the public works department, which is now in a rental facility, Wyatt observed that “two years ago we talked about where public works needed to be by the next weekend. And now it has disappeared.
“We have to look at a bigger focus in Branford. “It is not screaming development. We have to be very cautious about the type of development coming into town because it is getting scary who is showing up at the front door.”
Wyatt has long been in favor of giving Branford a new hotel with 2,000 “brand new rooms… And we could charge a $10 tax for room. That means $20,000 at 365 days a year, which means $7.3 million a year. That is $7.3 million that could come to the town of Branford for that kind of tourism idea. It would not be disrupting our town. They would be using our restaurants, our gas stations and then move on.”
She raised a similar idea in 2013 when she proposed that a public golf course be built on the 77-acre town-owned Tabor property. Wyatt told the press that she holds degrees in interior design, architecture and landscape architecture from New York Institute of Technology. A golf course, like a new hotel, would generate money for the town, she said.
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When a candidate decides to run, her credentials should be proven, not simply asserted. Her platform should be described completely, and not be limited to development. How is this candidate going to address education? Infrastructure? Taxes? Where does she stand on the establishment of new self-governing neighborhoods within the town, like Stony Creek? Any plans for programs to address hunger and health? Seems like this article raises more questions than it answers.
I just did an internet search on "Jacey Wyatt super model" and suggest you do the same. You can see a LOT more of Jacey on MySpace and read about her (presumably the same Jacey Wyatt) on ModelMayhen.com, where she characterizes herself as "a professional underwear and bikini model by day but... also just a simple girl with that runs a huge fashion company and the founder and creator of Connecticut fashion week and much more."
C'mon Eagle, this is an interesting woman with a varied background and an astonishing command of the English language. Let's get the full profile of where she stands on the issues and how her background qualifies her for the job!