Guess How Much Darien Sends to the State Government in Taxes

To the editor:

I‘ve lived in Darien for 35 years and served as a public official for 28 years (12 years on the Representative Town Meeting and 16 years as your town treasurer). But, I’ve never heard of the situation that occurred on Sept. 26!

That day, two U.S. senators and a U.S. congressmen came to Darien to insert themselves into our First Selectman race supporting the Democratic candidate. Why so involved in our small town of about 21,000 people and a local political race?

I’ve never seen these political players in Darien all at the same time even during National tragedies, so what was their agenda for being here? Could they want to push Hartford’s agenda of limiting local control?

State Democratic political operatives working on the Democratic candidate’s first selectman campaign talk about “equity.” So, let’s talk about equity starting with tax equity. Did you know that Darien pays over $200 million to the state of Connecticut and gets back from the state about $3-4 million.

This $3-4 million includes our excess cost sharing (ECS) money, our special education reimbursement (ECR) and any grants we receive. Darien pays the 5th most tax dollars of any town or city in the state regardless of size. So, I would ask these Democrats where’s the “equity” for our citizens?

Tip O’Neill, former House Majority Leader and Democrat, famously said “All politics are local.” I wholeheartedly agree. We need to pay attention to our issues: local control, public safety, flooding, schools and the health/welfare of our citizens.

Those are the issues that Monica McNally, Jon Zagrodzky and Marcy Minnick care deeply about. They don’t care about national politicians coming into our town with their agendas to interfere in our elections. That is why I am voting for Monica, Jon and Marcy. I hope you will too.

Joan Hendrickson

Editor’s note: Joan Hendrickson, a Republican, is the elected Darien town treasurer.