Neighborhood Watch Confusion: What Happened?

During the June 13th Board of Selectmen’s meeting, 1st Selectman Carusillo reported confusion among townsfolk and State Police regarding formation of a Neighborhood Watch. The Goshen News found the report itself confusing and made further inquiries.

What happened? Here’s what we learned:

In late May or early June Republican Selectman candidate Dawn Wilkes produced a flyer entitled “Are You Concerned About Neighborhood Safety?” The flyer (see copy, reproduced herein) was also an invitation to attend a meeting to hear State Police Trooper Duncan discuss the crime situation in the West Pond area of town and how Neighborhood Watch programs can help. According to Wilkes the impetus for organizing the program was that a personal friend was the victim of the car break-in described in the flyer. She told The Goshen News in an interview on the incident that she had become impatient with the lack of progress on the part of the Board of Selectmen in setting up Neighborhood Watch programs.

“So we decided to make a flyer,” she told us, “and since the flyer was generated from me and I’m running for office, my smart people on my team said ‘Holy cow, your opponent’s going to hold this against you if you don’t put the proper attribu-tion on it. Because it came from you, it’s gonna look like it came from your campaign’”.“I said ‘OK let’s put the attri-bution on the bottom of the flyer.’ That’s it, I’m paying for the flyer. I got the flyer print-ed.....I took it to people in the neighborhood... who then hand delivered it to people they knew in the neighborhood.....”

The flyer identifies Wilkes as the organizer and includes the attribution “Paid for by Dawn for Selectman”.

“I reached out to the trooper and I coordinated with the troopers,” Wilkes said. “Trooper Duncan and a companion would come, and because somebody sent them the flyer.... and because it had the attribution on the bottom, the troopers decided it must be a political affair, which it was not, but it looked like it because [of ] the attribution. The troopers decided not to come.”

State Police ethics restrict officers from participating in political events.

“We held the event anyway...”, Wilkes told us. ... “so somebody misquoted that it was a political event and in the misquote called it a Democratic event”. Wilkes is a Republican candidate competing for endorsement at the July 18th Republican Town Committee caucus.

SEEC Rules

The Goshen News reached out to the Legal Department of the State Elections Enforcement Commission in Hartford to ask how it is normally determined whether an event is political. Based on the statute interpretation to which she directed us, it defines a shared event, giving the definitions of a political event:

1. The candidate was featured on invitations to the event

2. Whether the candidate notified supporters that he or she would be there

3. Whether the candidate’s literature is distributed at the event

4. The extent to which the event targets that candidate’s voters or donors

A copy of the flyer used for the event is pictured here. Readers can make their own judgements.

Election rules are complicated, but given that at least one of the indicia used by the SEEC appears to apply in this case, the featuring of the candidate’s name on the flyer, it is understandable that the State Police interpreted this to be a political event, justifying their declination to participate.

The Commission does not typically advise ordinary citizens or third parties regarding specific cases, before conducting a full investigation to include both sides. This can take up to a year. However, any candidate may avail themselves of the information from SEEC regulations in a more timely fashion. We were told that candidates can call them and get specific guidance on any question, facilitating candidate compliance with election rules within a short amount of time; usually within a day or two. Candidates can avail themselves of this service by calling 860-256-2940.