Marcia Chambers Photo
Bruce H. Wilson, Jr., (pictured) a savvy businessman, Cindy Cartier, an attorney and a member of the Guilford Board of Selectmen, and Paul Cianci, a civil engineer, are off and running for state Senate and House of Representatives seats in the Branford area.
Two out of three of Branford’s long-serving incumbents, both Democrats, decided to retire this year, giving both parties new opportunities in the 2014 election year. State Sen. Ed Meyer, who served for a decade, and State Rep. Pat Widlitz, who served for two decades, announced their retirements this spring. Both live in Guilford.
The 12th district is made up of six towns: Branford, Durham, Guilford, Killingworth, Madison and North Branford. The Republicans from these towns are holding their conventions this week. Democrats from these towns will hold their conventions next week.
Wilson, 50, lives with his family in Madison. On Monday night he was in the community room at Fire Headquarters in Branford, where 28 delegates representing towns in the 12th District unanimously endorsed him by voice vote. He decided to hold his state Senate convention in Branford, the home of his Democratic opponent, Ted Kennedy Jr., a lawyer and businessman, who last month announced his plans to launch his first political campaign. (As it turns out, Kennedy will hold his Democratic state senate convention on Monday in Madison. Click here to read about Kennedy’s campaign.)
Marcia Chambers Photo
This is Cianci’s (pictured) first political campaign. He recently joined the Republican Town Committee. He and his wife Angela live in town. He is up against incumbent state Rep. Lonnie Reed. She is seeking her fourth term in office representing the102nd Assembly district. She represents all of Branford except Stony Creek and Pine Orchard, which are part of the 98th General Assembly District. Her nominating convention is Tuesday.
Now Democrat Sean Scanlon, 27, and Republican Cartier, 48, both of Guilford, are seeking to replace Widlitz as the 98th District representative. Cartier, an attorney, has sought public office in the past, losing to Widlitz and Meyer. Scanlon currently works for U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. This is his first run for public election. Click here to read about him. Last night Cartier was unanimously endorsed at her convention in Guilford as the Republican candidate for the 98th District. Scanlon’s convention is Tuesday in Guilford.
Public Campaign Financing for Wilson and Cartier
Cartier also announced she had qualified for public campaign financing, raising the needed money within three days, her campaign manager, Kelly Ricciardi, said. Scanlon, in his first try for public office, qualified for public campaign financing in four days.
Kennedy is in the process of seeking to qualifying for public financing. He is holding a number of house gatherings, including one that will be held by a group calling itself Republicans for Kennedy.
Wilson, his Republican opponent, told the Eagle after his convention Monday night that he, too, will seek public financing for his campaign. Reed will do so as well. Cianci told the Eagle he has not yet made up his mind, but is leaning toward it.
Wilson Makes Debut
Saying he wants to be “an instrument for change” in the state legislature, Wilson detailed his life’s journey so far, telling a crowd eager to endorse him for state senator that above all he is a practical problem solver who will work to change economic policies.
“In business when something does not work, you change it. The business of Connecticut is not working, and you are the change,” he told the delegates. “I want to be the instrument of that change. It is time for us to untangle this mess and recreate a Connecticut of hope and opportunity for all of us.”
In accepting his party’s nomination, he described his journey from paperboy for the Hartford Courant to CEO of Aplicare, Inc., of Meriden, a company he sold in December 2011 to Clorox Products in California. At the time Clorox acquired Aplicare, it also purchased HealthLink, a Florida company. The combined purchase price for both transactions was in the range of $80 to $90 million at the time, according to news reports.
Wilson told his convention that he remembers well his start in business, which began with his paperboy days. He began that job when he attended middle school and continued through his years at Daniel Hand High School. “I delivered the Hartford Courant before school on my bicycle. Let me tell you, until you are riding a Schwinn with 50 newspapers strapped to your back in the dark, in January, you haven’t lived. I especially loved delivering the Sunday edition,” he recalled, referring the weight of the papers.
Wilson said that after he sold Aplicare, he began to think of his future and soon became interested in serving his town. As a member of the Madison Board of Education, where he heads the board’s Policy Committee, he “realized how easily I was able to take my accumulated experience and translate it to issues before the board and I also realized I could do more,” he said in an interview.
He was at a point in his life where he had the time and, he said, the desire to do more. About five weeks ago, he received a phone call from Tom Banisch, the chair of the Republican Party in Madison. Kennedy had just announced his candidacy for state senator.
“We need someone who is not afraid, someone who brings a business background to run as a candidate,” he said. “I said let me think about it. So I went home and talked to my wife and her very first words were: ‘You have to do it.’”
Gallup Poll On Leaving Connecticut Evoked
In their speeches, Wilson, Cartier and Cianci have all invoked a recent Gallup Poll that showed about 50 percent of the people in Connecticut — and Illinois — want to leave their states. The poll was taken in all 50 states.
Wilson said he was “part of the half that wants to stay and fight for what we can do and for what we have been in the past.”
Of the Malloy administration’s recent budget developments, he said: “a $55 dollar tax rebate. Really. That’s just an insult. And they couldn’t even deliver that.”
Banish nominated Wilson for the seat. He told the story of how Wilson, an avid mountain biker became involved in the Rockland Preserve Commission in Madison. The trails are now full every Saturday and Sunday when they never were before, he said. “It’s growing and growing.”
Banish said Wilson’s strength lies in his understanding of the importance of manufacturing for the state. “As we lose manufacturing jobs in Connecticut, the economy becomes weaker …. What Hartford needs is a practical problem-solver; this is a worker; this is someone who worked his way up the chain.
Banish took a poke at Kennedy, saying: “One thing I have to say he is not going to be a Congressman or U.S. senator in two years or shortly thereafter. He wants to represent the 12th district for as long as he can.” Wilson made a similar remark last week. Kennedy says he running for state office.
State Rep. Noreen Kokoruda, who represents the 101st Assembly District (covering Madison and Durham), seconded the nomination, saying Wilson was a Connecticut success story. “He was raised on the shoreline, went to public schools here and was successful. Don’t we want our children to come back to our community? And don’t we want them to raise our families here? Bruce has lived that.”
“Voters I talk to are interested in two things, the economy and jobs and he brings that to the table. He is a job creator. He understands regulations, the issues; he knows what it is like to make a payroll, to worry about insurance costs… . We need someone practical, someone who knows what it will take to turn economy around.”
Cartier’s Platform
With Permission
Cartier said in her acceptance speech last night that the focus of her campaign is “women, families, seniors and small businesses.”
She also outlined to her delegates the problems she feels the state is facing. “As we look at the State of our State over these past four years, things have gone from bad to worse — a state that is the worst state to open a business in, the worse state to retire in, the most expensive state to raise a family in and almost 50 percent of the residents want to leave our state.
She said she wants to tackle these issues. Her philosophy, she said, is that she will not take no for an answer.
“If you told me a year ago that I would be standing before you running for State Representative, that I would have opened another business, my law firm (Cartier & Bower, LLC, in Guilford), and most especially we would have a new baby daughter, I would have said, I hope so…but I also know that it takes more than hoping and dreaming to make things happen. It takes planning, preparation and action.”
Besides holding office as a selectwoman, Cartier has also been a member of Guilford’s Board of Education and Planning and Zoning Commission.
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