Petitioning Candidate Running for Somers Board Of Selectmen Seat

SOMERS, CT — Ralph Williams, who ran for the Board of Selectmen as a Republican in 2019 but has since left the party, has collected enough signatures to make another run for a seat as a petitioning candidate.

Williams, 71, said he was notified by Town Clerk Ann Marie Logan that his petition's signatures had been verified, qualifying him to appear on the November ballot.

In the municipal elections two years ago, Williams received the second-highest total votes among four candidates for selectman with 1,303, behind the 1,660 of Republican Tim Keeney. However, Republican Bud Knorr had won the race for first selectman, and under Connecticut General Statute 9-167a, a board containing three members may not have more than two from any one political party. Therefore, Democrat Timothy Potrikus, who collected 887 votes - 416 less than Williams - was seated as third selectman.

Williams penned the following note, assuring Somers residents he "will be nobody’s rubber stamp."

I have filed the necessary paperwork and signatures today with the Somers Town Clerk’s office to run for the Board of Selectmen this fall as a petitioning candidate.

This will be my second candidacy for that board. I ran as a Republican in 2019, when I was the second-highest vote-getter among the seven candidates for selectman and first selectman. However, the limits set by Connecticut’s minority-party representation statutes barred me from serving.

I have since left the Republican Party for reasons that have little to do with Somers politics, and I am now an unaffiliated voter.

I have been a Somers resident since 1980. I retired in 2018 after 43 years with the Journal Inquirer, having spent the last 17 years as news editor, overseeing the daily news gathering and preparation of its articles.

My service to the town has included working on its last three charter revision commissions, serving on the committee that developed the highly successful plan for demolition and remediation of the fire-ravaged Somersville Mill complex, and currently serving as an alternate member of the Zoning Board of Appeals.

My principal concern in seeking this office is to keep the operations of the town’s government as transparent as possible, to preserve its high degree of competent administration, and to keep it unsullied from the taint of partisan cronyism.

Among my chief objectives if elected will be revision of the Town Charter to expand the Board of Selectmen to five members, assuring a greater range of viewpoints and discussion about the community and how best to serve it.

I also want to encourage the creation of a post of town administrator, answerable to the Board of Selectmen, to oversee the town government’s day-to-day operations — a contentious issue that should be discussed openly and exhaustively and should not be undertaken without the voters’ approval at referendum.

Somers needs a government that listens and is accountable. To that end, I will be a selectman who will hear out anyone, but I will be nobody’s rubber stamp.

Knorr is not seeking another term, and Keeney is running for first selectman. Potrikus has also announced he will not be running for re-election.

Election Day is Nov. 2.

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