Opinion: If I were a Democrat…

The following was submitted by Jennifer Mahr.
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Author’s comment: Jennifer Mahr is the Chair of the Westfield Residents Association, but is writing here as a private citizen. The opinions expressed in the following article are her own and do not represent the WRA as an organization.

Since “bias” has been a big buzz word this week, let me explain mine before I start. I’m a registered Republican, transplanted from my native Chicago because I attended the US Coast Guard Academy, married a classmate and settled here in Middletown when my husband took a job with a small company in Danbury, CT. I was still on active duty, teaching US History to freshmen at CGA in New London, so Middletown was literally the middle of both of our commutes.

I became a “community activist” when the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to put the Army Reserve Base on Boardman Lane. I started writing for the Middletown EYE in August of 2008, and joined the Executive Committee of the Westfield Residents Association in 2009. When Arline Rich passed away in 2012, I became the Chair of the WRA.

(In FULL disclosure, I also get my Thanksgiving turkeys from Stephen Devoto, was on the WRA Executive Committee with him for years, and have worked with Ed McKeon on EYE projects more times than I can count.)

These last couple of weeks, I don’t recognize the Middletown EYE I helped to build. We used to pride ourselves on telling the WHOLE story, mostly by sitting in long, boring city meetings and writing about all the gory details so the average citizen would know what was really going on. The EYE wasn’t one person’s opinion, it was the collective’s observations of what was happening in Middletown. Lately, though, the EYE has become one or two people’s opinions, it hasn’t been telling the whole story, and there is a Facebook persona that is ruining the work that many authors have contributed to for more than a decade. As a result, Middletown residents are being robbed of a legitimate source of trustworthy information, and so I object with all due respect.

In my opinion, the EYE, in all its social media forms, is supposed to be neutral, posting all opinions, and telling all sides of the story. It doesn’t mean that its primary writers can’t have a personal opinion or run for political office, it means that there should be good segregation practices between the two. But there are a growing numbers of posts on the EYE’s Facebook page that are not reposts of original EYE blog articles (written by many other authors). These posts specifically target Mary Bartolotta, and in my opinion, unfairly.

Why do I care? Heck, I’m a Republican and I can’t even vote in the primary, so technically, a self-destructing Democratic party is great for my side of the aisle…except for the fact that I care about the fairness of the whole process for all candidates, I don’t believe in a strict correlation between national political parties and local parties, and I will always stand up to injustice where and when I can.

The heart of my objection is the non-stop blabbering about who is or isn’t attending a mayoral forum this week. Last week, I noted that in my experience running WRA candidate forums for the last 7 years, it is completely normal for candidates to accept some invitations and refuse others. In my experience with RSVPs from dozens of candidates, there is no correlation between “effective” leadership once elected and attending a forum when still a candidate.

Furthermore, when repeatedly pointing out that Mary Bartolotta did not attend the NEAT forum on Tuesday, or now the student forum last night, Facebook EYE “forgot” to mention that she is a sitting Councilwoman and the Deputy Majority Leader. She was attending a Common Council meeting Tuesday night. In fact, the EYE hasn’t mentioned at all that only 1 of 4 candidates is an elected official who chairs multiple city committees that meet at night. Her campaign’s explanation of a full schedule might actually be the truth.

Let me be even clearer: I am all for individuals posting personal reasons for supporting a particular candidate or not supporting a different one. I am NOT for the EYE (and by EYE I now mean the very few people with administrative access who post as the Middletown EYE on Facebook or on the blog site) using this admin power to help their preferred candidate and to unfairly bash all others. It does not matter that each post begins with a disclaimer about the writer’s preferred candidate, the bad behavior that follows is uncalled for.

The EYE was not invented to be a platform to get one person elected. Ed McKeon: you’re a candidate for Common Council. Stop posting as the Middletown EYE for the rest of the campaign season. Post as Ed, let someone else be the administrator and give the EYE its dignity back. Middletown needs citizens who will volunteer their time to keep the rest of us informed. The original premise behind the EYE that not everyone can know everything about what happens in our busy city, but many can know a little and share is a solid one. Our elected officials do a better job when they know many someones are watching and fairly reporting to others. Let’s continue messing this up…(I say with great sarcasm in case you didn’t catch that).

And in case you wondered, if I was a Democrat, I’d vote for Mary Bartolotta on Tuesday. She doesn’t need to show up at any public forum: her record is splashed all over the last 8 years as a Councilwoman. She’s the sitting Deputy Majority Leader (and really, Majority Leader after the passing of Tom Serra, though she did not take that title formally out of respect), she’s worked on 8 city budgets, she chairs the Finance and Government Committee, the General Counsel Commission, and the new Middle School Building Committee. She won the Democratic Town Council’s endorsement as the Democratic candidate for mayor, and she is endorsed by unions, veterans, educators, and other city commission leaders. She values the good stewardship of taxpayer dollars over using city services to buy political favor, and she wants what is best for ALL Middletown residents and not just a chosen political few. She has extensive management experience (supervising people, money and property) as the District Manager for twenty-one Better Bedding stores, and a personal work ethic that doesn’t stop until the job is overdone.

She is also as loyal a friend and as fierce a protective mother as anyone I have ever met. Her personal life, including her choice for a marriage partner and school for her child, is no one’s business but her own, and shame on anyone who dares tread in this sacred space. No male candidate is treated this way, and I won’t stand for any female candidate to be held to a different standard. No accusation of ineffective leadership has surfaced for the last 8 years: therefore, it is utter rubbish that her ability to govern fairly, effectively, and collaboratively would suddenly vanish the week before a primary because she could not or would not attend a last minute candidate forum. The truth is, no other candidate possesses the depth of her qualifications or her experience nor her compassion for and thoughtful consideration of multiple viewpoints at once. This is the Mary I know and support, and I encourage you to do the same.