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Politics

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Fairfield County Weekly: RunninӒ With the Farrell

This weeks Fairfield County Weekly cover story spotlights the 4th Congressional District race between Westport Democratic First Selectwoman Diane G. Farrell and Republican incumbent Christopher Shays.

The 3,000-word story by reporter Joe Miksch includes quotes from the candidates and their supporters and even mentions—and includes a link to—a brief film about the candidatesҒ views on Iraq produced by the owner of Norwalks Garden Cinema.

Westporters who have followed the Farrell-Shays campaign will find little new in the story, but it does provide a good rundown of the candidatesҒ views and their campaign themes for those unfamiliar with them.

The story also gives wider exposure to problems in Westports assessorҒs office through criticism of Farrell by Pete Wolgast, chair of the Westport Republican Town Committee.

“[Farrell] has largely abdicated her job during the last year or more to undertake her campaign for Congress and we’ve seen this in the fact that we’ve had a major mess in the tax assessor’s office,” he is quoted as saying.

Wolgast claims that Farrell failed to perform mandatory audits of town departments and, therefore, failed to discover that many higher-valued homes in Westport are underassessed and that 1,700 properties have undergone improvements without a change in their assessed value,Ӕ the report said.

Revenue lost for these reasons, he said, had to be made up with higher tax rates.Ӕ

The newspaper did not include a Farrell quote or response to the Wolgast remarks.

Comments:     Comment Policy

Folks should track down the article - I found it to be amongst the most insightful coverage of the politics of the race that I have yet seen in the local media.

Chris needs to be more specific about how he is serving the interests of the 4th District. Diane needs to be more specific about what she would do differently (rather than just saying what she wouldn’t do).

Otherwise, we’re looking at a content-free and purely partisan-based race that serves the interest of no one. “Chris is a right-winger.” “Diane is a lightweight.” Yawn. We all deserve better.

Chris Grimm

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