Post-Election Interview With 1st Selectman-Elect Seth Breakell

We spoke with Seth Breakell on the morning after his Election Day victory. The following are excerpts from that conversation.

GN: Tell us how you're feeling and what you thought [about the election results].

Breakell: I feel great, this morning and last night in particular. The results were pretty convincing. I've been saying all along that Goshen is ready for a change in a different direction. And I think last night pretty well summed that up.

GN: So as you transition from being a candidate, which is a very different undertaking than actually having to govern, and I guess you begin to think about what lands on your desk when you take office, what do you see on the immediate horizon? What things do you hope to accomplish fairly quickly and what things are more persistent challenges that are going to take a little bit more time?

Breakell: Well, I think it's going to go to kind of what I talked about as I was campaigning, again, just some of the rhetoric and divisiveness and stuff that I've seen in town, which sort of upset me over the last few years, was kind of my impetus to run. I think I can deal with that almost immediately.

GN: Can you elaborate on that a little bit?  

Breakell: As far as the issues? You know, I think there's the town hall itself, I think, has a lack of morale. Some of the boards and commissions, the way that the meetings are, I mean, look, the Selectman’s meeting has deteriorated to the point now where we can't even approve minutes from a previous week or a couple of weeks ago, right? So if we can't even do the most basic things, then how do you actually conduct town business?

It's just, it's just kind of a constant deterioration across the board. I think I can fix it pretty easily. You know, we had the vote total last night was 901 to 321 or 326. So that's roughly 1,200 people voted, but 900 voted for me. So I mean, that crosses party lines across the board. It looks like everybody's ready for a change. So I think I'm going to have no issues whatsoever dealing also across party lines, making those changes in a positive direction.

GN: If I could just probe that a little bit further, There are some individuals in town who have been at the heart of a lot of the, what do you want to call it, “nastiness” that we've unfortunately had to watch for the last year or so. I think that goes beyond a morale problem. Have you given any thought to what needs to happen there?

Breakell: Yeah, I mean I'm not going to call out any particular individual, I think it's just been an atmosphere in general that's been allowed to kind of fester and some people manifest their displeasure more emphatically than others. I think the calm and I guess maybe professionalism you call it that I'm going to bring to the table is going to settle a lot of that down almost immediately. I think some of that aggravation boils over from the lack of, I don't know, just the lack of being able to conduct these meetings and stuff like that in a professional, efficient, forward manner.

GN: I think we're all hoping that you're going to be successful in running the town well. At the end of the day, when somebody wins an election, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, you have to hope for that person to be successful because that affects our future for all of us.

Breakell: Sure, sure, obviously.

GN: Thank you. Take care.