THE ADVERSITIES OF NEW BRITAIN'S MAJORITY LEADER!

I was amazed by Alderman Sherwood’s comments in his recent letter to the editor where he stated that the fact that Dr. Candelori is a defendant in pending civil actions and has displayed a “lack of good judgment” in his selection of business partners has no bearing on his position as a Commissioner of The Mattabassett District.

In my opinion, such activities have everything to do with his position. How an individual conducts his personal business dealings is one of the best indicators we have of the type of person he is. To have someone who was involved in a such a mammoth ponzi scheme like Colonial Realty, who was convicted of tax evasion for what the media reports as not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal income, who was permanently barred by the Securities and Exchange Commission from ever associating with securities professionals, and who is now a defendant in civil actions that involve some of his former Colonial Realty cronies raises serious questions about his character.

The purpose of any vetting process is to determine if the candidate lives a life style, including his personal life, in such an unsullied manner as to not cause embarrassment to the position he seeks. In my opinion, someone involved in recent business dealings that involve other Colonial Realty affiliates is not such a person.

If you truly believe that his personal life has no reflection on his official position, then why did the New York Times article announcing his federal criminal conviction identify him as a “former lawmaker?”

Four city residents spoke during the public participation of Wednesday's Council meeting cautioning the council members to recall the great harm that was inflicted on to our residents by the " Ponzi Schemes such as businesses forced to close from losing vast sums of money even to the point that a retired physician had to return to work because of his losses with Colonial Reality shares. An interesting point from this speaker when she cited that there were no credit cards at the time business was conducted with all cash that is still sitting in Florida. She also stated that placing MR. Candelori in charge of public monies the bi-partisan should be quashed.

Another resident speaker fervently addressed the council with extreme caution to vote "independent thinking" by using your brain and not voting the straight party line.

A third resident voiced his concern of recent publicity exposing Dr. Candelori has three pending cases involving the same players of the original colonial reality makeup expressing his disdain for not listening to Alderman Mark Bernacki for the review of all the candidates through an interview process by the council.

The fourth resident used simply character-ethics-associations-non-partisan selections-

With all that being said, Majority leader Phil Sherwood ignored caution expressed by both his fellow council members, and the public by ramming through the override of the mayor's veto by citing " that he has no wish to listen to anything against Candelori, who stands to be in charge of a one hundred million dollar project." "further dismissing Candelori's position as a defendant in a current case in New London." "But subsequently found fault with the city's selection of a company that was named a defendant by another town but assigned the fence contract to him anyway for the Fairview Cemetery fence job."

With the Majority leader ignoring the residents well thought out suggestions with his pushing his quest to override the Mayor's veto by pushing his the democrats to vote his conscious and not theirs with the 11-4 vote result.

What was very noticeable was the hesitancy, noted by this writer, Alderman Carlozzi prior to his voting along with the party line. He had expressed his opposition to this appointment at many public affairs he had attended. It is sad that he ignored the comments made by the residents and chose to vote the party line and not with his conscious.