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News that Seymour First Selectman Kurt Miller is abandoning his responsibilities to take a job in Ansonia is unfortunate and disappointing.
When elected, you are signing a contract with the people. To abandon your position in the middle of your term for personal gain is a blatant breach of this contract. While we have known for a while now that Mr. Miller has been eyeing opportunities outside of Seymour, it is upsetting that he would not honor his word and finish out his term.
There is no doubt that the opportunity in Ansonia is financially beneficial to Mr. Miller personally, but opportunities may be available to him at this time next year.
The First Selectman position is the highest position within the Town of Seymour. People should be able to trust that whoever is serving in the role will have a steady hand and lead Seymour with a 100% commitment level. Someone leaving this post for anything short of an emergency should not be condoned. The voters spoke in November of 2019 and were promised that results would hold up for the full term. Breaking this promise leaves the town with a leader who was never elected to the position and promoted based on backroom political dealings. This is not the way that the voters and taxpayers of Seymour deserve to be treated nor is it how trust in government is achieved.
As the world and our community continue to deal with several once in a lifetime crises, a sudden change in leadership is the last thing we need. While we trust that the Board of Selectmen will make an informed decision as to who will take over the role, we do have some serious conditions that we believe that the interim First Selectman should meet before being considered.
The next First Selectman absolutely must be someone with no other employer outside of the Town of Seymour. The First Selectman role is a 24/7 responsibility and we need to be able to trust that the person who is leading the town has no other work priorities that will take them away from responsibilities here. This is a small enough community that you should be able to get in touch with the First Selectman when you need to. Allowing someone to take over who has additional bosses is not conducive to this kind of accessibility. There should be an existing trust that the person leading the town will be fully committed to the role and it just isn’t possible when you are collecting paychecks from elsewhere.
Whoever is handed the massive responsibility of becoming an interim First Selectman should swear that they will fulfill the remainder of the full term. One abandonment during a two year term is enough. We cannot afford a second. This should be an easy commitment to make considering that whoever is gifted the role will massively benefit from an unelected incumbency in future elections.
Serving your community in an elected capacity is a massive honor and an even greater responsibility, particularly when it comes with a healthy salary. For a community to be successful, we need a leader and a team of people who are fully committed to its success. It is unfortunate that right now in the town of Seymour, we don’t have that.
Submitted by Stephan Behuniak as a statement from the Seymour Democratic Town Committee
