VERNON — With the race for mayor just days away, both the Republican incumbent Daniel A. Champagne and Democratic challenger Jesse Schoolnik are both promising to keep economic development, and improved, affordable housing at the forefront of their agendas, if elected.
Champagne said that as mayor he has been addressing town needs, such as blight, school improvement, and enticing new businesses to town, which he would continue to make a top priority. While he prides himself on holding the tax rate flat in recent years, he said he wants to find ways to reduce it.
The town’s current tax rate is 39.63 mills, or $39.63 per $1,000 of assessed property value — a number that Schoolnik pointed out is one of the highest in the region.
Still, “we have not had a tax increase in four years — that’s a huge accomplishment,” Champagne said. He added that over 90 percent of the town’s public works projects, such as road work or park upgrades, were done with long-term savings plans.
“I inherited the mill rate,” said Champagne, who served three terms on the Town Council before taking the mayor’s seat in 2013 and easily holding it ever since. “We will have to lower that mill rate and we will balance all so there is no increase in taxes.”
Schoolnik said there’s an ongoing need to bring in more businesses to fill empty storefronts, conduct road repairs and install sidewalks on Talcottville Road. In addition, Schoolnik said, fostering a bipartisan approach and camaraderie in conversations on key decisions affecting residents has been lacking in local government, long before the coronavirus pandemic erupted.
“A lot of times in politics, people act like they are on two different teams fighting each other, but we’re not. We’re on the same team,” Schoolnik said.
Champagne, 52, a 22-year Vernon police veteran, said he first ran for public office eager to continue in public service for the town he has lived in since the age of nine.
Schoolnik, 40, a regulatory affairs manager at UnitedHealth Group, said he intended to become an elementary school teacher, but found an interest in the national political landscape while attending college in Washington that sparked his desire to serve the public sector in local government. He lived in the district for a decade, working as a nonpartisan staff assistant for the Senate Finance Committee and as senior manager for health policy and regulatory affairs at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.
“The more you get involved and see things you want to change, the more you realize that you are the person who has to step up,” said Schoolnik, who now serves on the Planning and Zoning Commission and is the Democratic town vice chairman.
A Wallingford native, Schoolnik said besides his affinity for Vernon, where he has lived for the past six years, his 16 years of government experience make him the best candidate for mayor.
Champagne said his administration’s biggest, most recent accomplishment is the town’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic by consistently bringing in supplies, helping businesses to stay open, and setting up vaccine clinics.
Whoever wins the seat, they will chair the 12-member Town Council. Democrat incumbents running for re-election include Ann Letendre and Maryann Levesque, alongside Nicola Chambres-Holder, Jennifer C. Hirschberg-Wise, Dennis J. Plevyak, Teri Lynn Rogers, Karen Colt, and Ariana Nieves-Matias. Republicans vying for a seat on the council include incumbents Brian A. Motola, Laura B. Bush, Bill Campbell, Julie Clay, Jim Tedford, Linda B. Gessay, and Michael D. Wendus, along with John B. O’Connell.
