Sam Gurwitt photo
Hamden Legislative Council President Mick McGarry is resigning with five and a half months left in his term.
McGarry formally announced his resignation at Monday’s council meeting. During that meeting, he urged his fellow council members to “focus on the issues, not personalities and not politics, and to act with kindness and generosity towards each other” going forward.
McGarry served on the council as the First District representative for nearly eight years. He served as the council’s president since 2017.
His decision to leave mid-term comes after an offer from the Fairfield Education Association to serve as the member engagement manager for his union. He said the new position, which started July 1, doesn’t leave him enough time for his Council duties.
“The things that I really got excited about on council were education related,” McGarry, who is an English teacher at Fairfield Warde High School, told the Independent on Monday. “When we had to flat-fund the budget, it was heart wrenching… Years ago we had more money to buy band instruments and we converted the baseball field into an all purpose field so more student athletes could utilize the space.
“those are the things I’ve really felt great about,” he added.
He asserted that he is looking forward to working in unison with the association to combat educational issues. He also plans to remain on Hamden’s Democratic Town Committee and consider volunteering his time on town boards such as the arts commission.
Kathleen Schomaker, president pro tempore of the Council, will serve as the acting president until another election is held for the position.
Meanwhile, it will be up to the Hamden Democratic Town Committee to identify and recommend first district candidates to the council. The council will then vote on which one of those candidates should fill McGarry’s spot until the official election in November.
"Kathleen Schomaker, president pro tempore of the Council, will serve as the acting president until another election is held for the position."
This election needs to happen before sunrise. Safe to say Schomaker and Leng are behind closed doors right now plotting for personal and professional (sic) gain from this opportunity.
Hamden now finds itself in a situation where the (acting) Legislative Council President is an employee of the mayor - he controls her job and her salary. In recent LC deliberations and votes on the town budget, Schomaker has had to abstain due to the conflict-of-interest. So here we are with an (acting) LC president who must abstain from all budget-related matters due to conflict-of-interest.
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As an aside: for anecdotal evidence of how absurd and corrupt the Leng administration and its budgeting have been, look no further than his creating (in 2017) a taxpayer-funded "energy efficiency coordinator" position for a political ally (Schomaker). How in the world does a town this size, with this level of debt ($1 billion +), justify creating a position such as this?