State Rep. Lonnie Reed Kicks Off Campaign

State Rep. Lonnie Reed (D‑Branford) kicked off her 2016 election campaign last week, saying it was time to ​“re-imagine Connecticut,” to bring back the economy, and to build on the town’s bio-tech, medical and manufacturing sectors to help lead the way. 

She described the difficult last days of the legislative session and the serious cuts to the state budget ​“because the money is just not coming in. …It is never going to rain money the way it was when we were living in the bubble like everybody else.”

The Stony Creek Brewery was the location for the Democratic Town Committee (DTC) convention, an especially meaningful setting, she said, because she helped bring the brewery to Branford. 

More than 300,000 people have visited the brewery since it opened about a year ago. ​“And those visiting folks who seek out the brewery also discover Branford’s restaurants and shops and other countless assets. It’s an economic engine,” Reed said in an interview, adding. ​“its success has given the town a new vibrancy.” 

She also told the Eagle afterward, that the brewery’s Dock Time Vienna-style lager just won an international Gold Medal at the World Cup Beer Festival in Austria – the first-ever Connecticut brewery to earn such recognition.”

Mike Leone, the new chair of the DTC, told some 60 people gathered for the event that Reed ​“was instrumental in cleaning up this site, the site where this brewery sits. This is the kind of work our Democratic party does. We bring businesses to Branford,” he said.

Reed, co-chair of the Energy & Technology Committee and a member of the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee, is seeking a 5th term in office representing the 102nd District. 

State Sen. Ted Kennedy, Jr., who is also seeking re-election as state senator of the 12th District, which includes Branford, North Branford, Guilford, Madison, Durham, and Killingworth, attended the event. Bruce Wilson, a Madison businessman who ran against Kennedy in the last election, plans to run against him again.

Scanlon Nominates Reed

State Rep. Sean Scanlon, who represents Stony Creek and Pine Orchard and the town of Guilford in the 98th District , nominated Reed. Scanlon, 29, is running unopposed. Reed’s opponent is Representative Town Meeting (RTM) majority leader Ray Ingraham, who is also chair of Branford Republican Town Committee. This is his first run for state office.

Scanlon told the delegates that when he and Kennedy, both new to the legislature, arrived in Hartford two years ago, it was Reed who mentored and guided them.

“There are very few people who are more effective than her. She knows how to get things done and she has the respect of our colleagues,” he said. ​“She knows everyone and everything. I lose track of the number of times she has come up to me and said, ​‘I just found out’ or ​‘I just heard’ or ​‘we have to get on top of this.’”

Scanlon said few people understand the intricacies of her work as the co-chair of her energy and technology committee. He praised her for leading the fight to get a solar energy system on the now closed Branford Landfill and this year with overcoming the objections of the big power companies to get a shared solar program. This program enables neighbors, especially those living in condos, to participate in the benefits of a solar energy system. 

“For every single resident of this town to have someone of Lonnie’s experience, Lonnie’s passion, Lonnie’s relationships, and everything Lonnie brings to our town, well, we need her again. I cannot wait to help her get re-elected,” Scanlon said.

Doug Hanlon, who served for eight years as a representative on the RTM from Short Beach, seconded Scanlon’s nomination. He recently resigned from the RTM because of academic commitments. Peter Jackson, an architect and a long-time community leader, has taken Hanlon’s place. .

Hanlon recalled his first year on the RTM, a year that turned out to be Reed’s last year. ​“For the first few months I kept my mouth shut as I figured things out. I watched her as she was rising and sitting, rising and sitting, and talking clearly and precisely about issues. I can honestly say I learned from Lonnie. And I thought what is she doing on the RTM? She belongs in the statehouse. And that is exactly what happened.”

He described how after 20 years of trying, Reed got the green light for a stop sign on Short Beach Road soon after she arrived in Hartford. ​“This stop sign enabled my son to walk to the school bus,” Hanlon said. And he described how she answered his call when the community faced a major shellfish dredging issue last summer. ​“Something had to be done and Lonnie came aboard,” he said to a round of applause. 

Bringing Bio-Tech to Branford
Reed has been instrumental in bringing biotech companies and associated industries to town and in helping to secure state funding to keep them here. The town is fast becoming a bio-tech hub. She has worked with top state officials to bring Core Infomatics and Mount Sinai’s Genomics Lab to town. The companies have hired scores of employees and every bio-tech company spawns new ones, Reed said.

In her acceptance speech, Reed, a former television reporter and anchor in New York City, disclosed some news herself. She told the crowd that Ancera, a seedling company in Branford that started in 2013 and is located at 21 Business Park Drive, is close to obtaining an $8.9 million financing effort aimed at expanding their business.

The company is developing a rapid, portable platform for the separation, quantitative detection, and identification of minute concentrations of various pathogens from whole blood or other bodily fluids. Ancera’s platform is based on technology, and it is licensing exclusively from Yale University.

Reed also told an enthusiastic audience that she received a call the other day from an executive running another medical research company, now in the incubator stage. ​“He told me that when the company gets bigger he wants to bring it to Branford.”

Reed told the convention, ​“We have the best team up there. I gotta tell you, everybody up there talks about how the three of us of work together and fight together and we have got each other’s backs and we have got your back. So I am a fighter and you are all fighters. Let’s get out there!”

Reed and Scanlon have each qualified for public financing for their election campaigns, but since Scanlon does not have an opponent, his financing is likely to be reduced. Reed and Scanlon each had to raise a minimum 150 small donations of under $100, totaling $5,000, in order to receive a public grant of about $28,000.

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