Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti.
Shelton Republicans on Monday nominated Mayor Mark Lauretti to run for a 14th term — which he hopes he won’t have to finish.
Lauretti, who is pursuing the state GOP’s nod for governor in 2018, said the city’s voters should see that as a good thing.
“I gave them 26 years of my life,” he said. “Have I not given them a commitment?”
Lauretti said his record as the city’s top elected official since 1991 shows voters what they can expect even if he departs halfway through his term to succeed Gov. Dannel Malloy.
If that were to happen, the city’s charter calls for the president of the Board of Aldermen — currently the Third Ward’s John Anglace — to take over the mayor’s chair until the 2019 election.
Shelton’s Democrats also met Monday but did not nominate a candidate to challenge Lauretti.
“I think that most people would recognize that the progress that the city has made is significant,” Lauretti said. “We’ve taken a factory town and reinvented ourselves and have become a corporate hub.”
During a speech to about 50 members of the Republican Town Committee in the City Hall auditorium Monday, the mayor rattled off names of companies who have moved to the city, attracted by its low property taxes and high quality of life.
“The value that we’ve created here is significant,” he said. “Other cities aren’t experiencing that.”
Lauretti won a 13th term in 2015 by more than 4,000 votes over Democratic challenger Michele Bialek and Timothy Bristol, a petitioning candidate.
The mayor leads a GOP slate dominated by incumbents, all of which were also recommended by the party’s steering committee.
The steering committee’s recommendations for Planning and Zoning Commission — incumbents Ruth Parkins and Anthony Pogoda — almost faced a challenge Monday.
Parkins chairs the Planning and Zoning Commission, which approved the massive, 120-acre “Shelter Ridge” development off Bridgeport Avenue earlier this year.
The development proposal prompted an organized opposition group, SOS/Save Our Shelton, whose members said the city is overdeveloped as it is and does not have the infrastructure to properly handle all the traffic and other demands on public services such developments entail.
Parkins voted yes on the proposal. Pogoda voted no.
Mark Widomski, who ran as a third-party mayoral candidate in 2009, was nominated from the floor to be considered Monday for a GOP endorsement for the P&Z.
But Republican Town Committee Chairman Ken Nappi said that the party’s rules call for potential candidates to reach out to the committee’s chairman, Anthony Simonetti, if they’re interested in running.
Widomski, who wasn’t at Monday’s meeting, had not, Simonetti said.
A motion from Fourth Ward Alderman Jim Capra to waive the rule failed by a vote of 28-20, and Parkins and Pogoda were nominated for re-election.
Two of the SOS/Save Our Shelton group’s most vocal members, Greg Tetro and Peter Squiteri, attended Monday’s meeting of Republicans but did not speak.
Earlier in the meeting, Anglace led a round of applause for two longtime GOPers who opted not to run for re-election this year — former Board of Education Chairman Win Oppel and former Third Ward Alderwoman Lynne Farrell. Farrell resigned earlier this year and was replaced by Cris Balamaci, who used to chair the city’s Board of Apportionment and Taxation.
The full slate is below. An asterisk denotes an incumbent.
Mayor
Mark A. Lauretti *
Treasurer
Raymond O’Leary *
Board of Aldermen
First Ward
Anthony Simonetti *
David Gidwani
Second Ward
Stanley Kudej *
Eric McPherson *
Third Ward
John Anglace *
Cris Balamaci *
Fourth Ward
Noreen McGorty *
Jim Capra *
Board of Education
Thomas Minotti *
Mark Holden *
Kathy Yolish *
Darlissa Ritter *
Anne Gaydos
Board of Apportionment and Taxation
Karen Battistelli *
John Belden Jr. *
Michael Gaydos
Planning and Zoning Commission
Ruth Parkins *
Anthony Pogoda *
Planning and Zoning Alternate
Ned Miller *
Library Board
Jim Geissler
