Campaigning Uncomfortably

The last several years has included of a number of new experiences for me. Many of these were quite painful, some exhilarating, but none more untypical for me than campaigning. If you had asked me 5 years ago what I might be doing in 2009, running for political office would have been pretty close to the bottom of the list. Of course I would have not predicted that I would be coming up with an optimized dog hair management system (see my previous couple of posts).

Initially anyway, one of the most uncomfortable things for me has been standing some place, in front of a store for example, and handing out brochures. I’ve never been very good at cold sales calls, I always feel like I’m being intrusive, and of course I’ve got a real fear of rejection. Every time I go to campaign, I really don’t want to. I generally come up with all sorts of excuses to stall getting started, and end up wasting a lot of time catching up on shopping, banking, etc.

And yet, despite my initial trepidation, I have come away from every campaigning session feeling exhilarated. Yes, there are a few people that don’t want to talk to you, and a very small number are even rude. But most people seem to be genuinely interested, are glad to get the literature and often times want to engage in some discussion. And, every time I have been out I have had at least one conversation that made me feel great. Either it was someone who had a significant story to tell about their experience with the school system, or someone who heard about me from somewhere else and was a supporter, or even someone who had a differing point of view and appreciated me listening to it.

So, I guess trying something new, like campaigning, is like trying to get your kids to eat a new food. It's the fear of the unknown that slows you down. Summon the courage to give it a try, for more than just a bite or two, and who knows, you might like it.

[BTW: If you haven’t heard about my campaign, you can find me at www.IPN2009.org/william-hart/.  (Check out the picture, it was my first serious attempt at air brushing myself, I never realized before that I had fangs.) Also please vote Tuesday!  In these local elections every vote really does count!]

Cleaning Tip #3

A quick cleaning tip: When cleaning a spot off the carpet, if after cleaning the area is lighter than the surrounding carpet, one of two things are true:

1. You used the paint thinner instead of the carpet cleaner
2. It's time to rent the rug machine and do the whole room.

It seems like we just shampooed all the carpets a few months ago!

Cleaning Tips #1 & #2

As I have slowly morphed into some sort of "domestic god", I'm beginning to develop a few cleaning tips. (Warning: these are an engineer's version of cleaning tips).



First, get one of these:

Second, don't have one of these:

The Roomba robotic vacuum (top picture) works very well (we call her Vicky). The model that we have (962) has a built in timer so that it starts itself up every morning. We have it set up to clean most of the carpet upstairs (all except the kids rooms, where the floor presents too many hazards). It wanders around cleaning as it goes. After finishing it parks itself back in its base station where its batteries are charged for the next day. Although it doesn't perfectly cover every spot each day, by running every day it keeps the carpet pretty clean. We've had Vicky since Christmas '08 and after learning a few tricks for maintaining her, she has been running pretty well.

Vicky's effectiveness is pretty nice given that I haven't followed my second tip. We do have a Golden Retriever (named Bailey), and he seems, or his coat seems anyway, to be able to violate a law of physics; the law of conservation of matter. He generates far more hair than seems possible, more hair by weight that he appears eat as food (thus the physics problem). I read somewhere, that although Golden's make great pets, they are off the scale on shedding. I can testify to that fact. You can try to brush him, but it is like trying to empty the ocean with a teacup; no matter how much you brush there is always more hair.

His hair is all over the place, especially in the front foyer. Apparently, he shakes a lot of it loose while going up and down the stairs. Either that, or there is an end point of some worm hole in the foyer that brings in dog hair from another part of the multiverse.

Vicky keeps the hair under control in our upstairs, although it taxes her a bit. She is part of iRobot's "pet series" so she is supposed to be designed to handle pet hair. Even so, we still have to clean her out ever two or three days. Still it takes far less time to clean her out than to vacuum by hand.

When you first get a Roomba, you need to spend some time policing the area for cords and other things that it can get tangled on. I went around the upstairs and tied up all the power, phone, and network wires. Under my bed, where I keep a WiFi access point and a Ethernet switch, I built a little box out of an old vegetable bin to hide all the wires. To keep her out of the kids room, I just make sure their doors are closed after they leave for school (Vicky does her thing every morning at 8:00 am).

The next step is probably to get a second Roomba to live in the downstairs. We have tested Vicky downstairs and she seems to work pretty well on both the hardwood floors and the area rugs. It's just the obstruction management will be more difficult as there is usually much more going on on the first floor.

Now, how about a robotic toilet cleaner!

Politics

For those that haven't heard, I've decided to try getting involved in politics. This seemingly unwise decision was not prompted by any actual desire to get into the political scene; rather it was driven by my interest in the Town's school system. As a parent you can't help be interested in the quality of your school system, and as a citizen it's not hard to see how a good education for everyone is critical, and as a tax payer you are reminded of how important good management is on every tax bill. The quality of the school system was the major reason why Kathleen and I chose Newtown when we ran out of room in our Stamford condo 15 years ago (newborn child #2, Bri was sleeping in her basinet under the circular stair to our loft).

Last year I volunteered to work on a strategic planning committee that was developing a new Capital Improvement Plan process for the School District. While on that committee I learned of a position opening up on the Board of Education. Being very interested in education, having a good deal of experience managing complicated things, having served on non-corporate boards, and being totally naive of local politics, I sent in my resume. To my pleasant surprise, I was chosen by the Board at the end of July.

The trouble with the position is that it expires at the end of this year, so to stay on the Board for more than a few months I have to run for reelection in November, which is where the naïve part really kicks in. There has been a tradition in Newtown that the Board of Education would only select mid-term replacements from lists of candidates vetted by the two traditional parties (the Republicrats). This had become such a common practice that many people told me that it was a requirement. That didn’t seem very democratic to me, and not having any contacts with either committee I sent my resume in anyway. It turns out, after a review of the Town Charter and Board policy, that as you might expect, there is no requirement for the Board to pick a Republicrat approved candidate, the Board is required only to advertise the position and pick from the applicants.

So, in my first Newtown Bee chronicled mini-soap opera, neither side of the Republicrats had room for me on their slate (even though there will be four open seats). I guess I hadn’t paid them appropriate homage before applying.

The question then boils down to; do we select our leaders based on their ability to lead, or the number of chits that they have built up with the town committees? Certainly there are many capable people working with the town Republicrat committees, but I am an incumbent and did beat out the other two applicants. It’s hard to believe that somewhere amongst all the possible slate positions there wasn’t a slot, assuming the selection would be based on merit.

Now I have to admit that neither party holds a strong attraction for me. I’ve never liked strongly partisan politics, it seems far too often to get in the way of doing the right thing for the country. Nor do I agree completely with either sides’ national platforms. So not having to choose between the two halves of the Republicrats was really a gift.

Still, I was faced with a problem, how do I run for office? I was encouraged by a reporter for the local paper to run on my own; circulating a petition, setting up a PAC to finance it (the campaign finance laws make even a local election complication I’ve learned), and appearing on a separate line on the ballot. It is interesting that a supposedly objective reporter would steer me that way when there was an obvious third choice: The Independent Party of Newtown (IPN).

The IPN is an interesting bunch of characters. They are a group of people passionately interested in the issues who want to see Newtown be managed transparently and competently. They are interested in finding the best people for the positions, and are very willing to argue even amongst themselves (frequently). They want to see the best possible government for Newtown.

They are not purely “pro school” as many have suggested. They are tax payers like the rest of us and recognize that costs have to be kept under control. That only though good planning and management will we have a cost effective school system. They are concerned about large sums of money being spent on projects around town without appropriate public debate. For example, the new Town Hall of which many people aren’t even aware, and the significant additional expenses being proposed for Fairfield Hills now that the original $21 million has be expended.

Clearly the IPN was the place for me; good people, with strong ideas and backgrounds, and the experience of running a campaign. I will be appearing on their ticket this November 3 along with one other Board of Education candidate, Richard Gaines. Richard is also an incumbent on the Board and was rebuffed by the Democratic Party for their ticket. So the only BOE incumbents running in November will be on the IPN ticket.

In total IPN is running 18 candidates this year for positions throughout the town government. At the top of the ticket is Bruce Walczak (currently an IPN incumbent on the Police Commission) running for First Selectman and Bill Furrier running for Selectman. The two of them I believe will make a very positive difference in the way Newtown is run.

IPN is also running a total of 8 candidates for the Legislative Council, enough to break the road block created by the Republicrats. The IPN LC team is lead by their two incumbents, Po Murray and Gary Davis who were elected to the council in 2007, IPN’s initial year. Joining Po and Gary on the slate for District 2 is Mike Mossbarger. In District 1 IPN is running Kevin Fitzgerald, Robert Hennessey, and Albert Roznicki. In District 3 the candidates are James Belden and Robert Duero.

One of the interesting and sad features of Newtown politics in past years is there have often been only enough people running in total, from both parties, to fill the open seats on many boards. It is kind of like the false elections of the communist states we learned about in school, how they claimed they were “democracies” even though only candidates from a single party were on the slate. Newtown almost had that situation this year for the Board of Finance where the two parties cross endorsed each other’s candidates. Only the IPN is providing some choice by running two excellent candidates; William McNerney and Benjamin Roberts. The BOF is more critical than it may appear it first. Even thought their roll is theoretically “advisory”, I learned while working on the CIP process, that in reality the BOF is the principle gate keeper for all budget items in the town and make many political decisions about the desirably of projects. Their influence is not just limited to financial analysis. It is critical for the town that the BOF represent the diversity of opinions in the town.

IPN is also running candidates for the Board of Managers, Karen Pierce, the Police Commission, Keith Jacobs, and Probate Judge, Magaret Jepsen.

IPN is finally offering Newtown something it has needed for a long time; a choice. A choice for issue oriented, competent leadership. I strongly encourage you to vote for the entire slate.

Technical Note: as those of you who know me well might expect, I am providing technical support for the IPN website. It’s built on the SquareSpace platform which allowed me to put up a lot of content very quickly. Please check it out. If you are interested in issues there are some nice tools, especially the search feature at the lower right. Try searching for things like “Fairfield Hills” or “High School Expansion”. The SquareSpace system made it real easy to put in features like that.

How time flies

It's certainly not a novel observation, but your perspective on time really gets recalibrated as you get older. Some things to me just don't seem that long ago, but to my kids they are from pre-history. This hit home today when I realized that I have some pots hanging on our pot rack, which we still use every day, that I purchased before I married my late wife (good pots - Calphalon). The pots, about a quater century old, pre-date my kids by several years, yet I can still remember buying them. And you know, to me that doesn't seem that long ago.