Candidates from both political parties addressed town residents at a Meet the Candidates event hosted by Roaring Brook School PTO on October 10. Races are expected to be close, especially for the Board of Finance.
This is the first year that Republican candidates Margaret Bratton and Cathy Durdan are up for re-election after a heated conflict with town residents over the school budget in 2010. That year, over 2,000 parents, students, teachers and community residents rallied to preserve school funding and walked to the Board of Finance public hearing. At the hearing, the Coalition of Citizens for Avon (CC4A) presented a petition signed by over 1,800 Avon voters who supported the 6.91 percent proposed budget. Rather than allowing the full budget to be voted on in a town wide referendum, all of the Republican Board of Finance members voted to cut an additional one million dollars from the school budget angering many voters.
Incumbent Board of Finance member Tom Gugilotti urged voters in attendance to support the full slate of Democratic candidates, particularly those running for the Board of Finance, citing the need for inspired, visionary financial leadership. He said, "We have a real opportunity this election to elect candidates who will make small, prudent changes in Avon's finances that will yield big improvements in the Town and the school system." Gugliotti, an attorney and 30 year Avon resident who is running for his sixth four-year term, is joined by fellow Democrats Laura Young, a development and alternative funding professional with extensive community leadership experience, and Doug York, a treasury consultant with 30 years of strategic finance experience and an MBA from Harvard University, are hoping to win seats on the Board of Finance.
