Republicans Pass Bylaws Changes Over Some Objections

Republicans approved the proposed changes to their town committee’s bylaws Wednesday evening.  

Seventy-eight registered Republicans checked in at the party caucus at the Farmington Community and Senior Center to vote on the changes, which had been the subject of some controversy.

A non-binding vote of committee members yielded a 33 yes, 14 no vote before the actual vote of all electors was taken.  

In the final binding tally, 55 voted in favor, with 21 opposed.  

Both votes were taken by ballot, not voice, after a motion made by Screening Committee Chairman Phil Dunn.  

But while the votes were private, a public discussion was held before the votes, in which several people spoke both for and against the changes.  

First, Republican leaders explained the motivation behind the changes – to win elections.  

“It’s our job to get Republicans elected… this change is geared to streamlining our process… so come November we are united,” explained Dunn.  

Others were more explicit.  

“By making these changes we come through much stronger and more unified,” said committee member Christian Hoheb. “The last several rounds we’ve had folks unendorsed coming forward trying to get elected and that doesn’t help us… It’s a glaring mistake to let it go the way it’s been going.”  

Some felt the process was being rushed forward, with the bylaws changes being introduced only recently and their amendments being made in the past week. But committee Chairman Mike Clark said he wanted to see the changes in place for the upcoming election cycle as well as long term.  

“The last three caucuses I sat through, I think, were disastrous to this party. To this day it still has impacted people on this committee …Caucuses are simply so divisive and simply don’t reflect what we should be doing," Clark said.  

While the speakers agreed on confidence in the party’s candidates, leaders said divisions in the party could jeopardize elections.  

“We are overmanned. We don’t hold the mandate in voters; we don’t have it anymore. So if we go and are having these crazy caucuses and these primaries that are incredibly divisive, we are going to lose… I know this from my heart - I wanted to change this two years ago,” Clark said.  

“The wolf is at the door. We’re down 1,000 votes compared to the Democrats… I read the Patch article and the comments and I thought, how dare these people suggest this is a power grab or that a few people are trying to take over the process - we’re volunteers,” Hoheb said.  

But seeing power concentrated in just a few hands was, indeed, what several speakers were afraid of.  

Skip Pogson, who challenged at caucus after being shut out of the last election after 23 years on the Town Plan and Zoning Commission, said that the process had worked well – with an exception.  

“In the last 8 – 10 years a small select group of people, mainly the screening committee, has chosen candidates without discussion or interaction with rest of the town committee,” Pogson said.  

He suggested he would have no problem with the changes if the officers would open up the process of candidate selection to include committee members. And he said that the changes were not properly vetted but rushed through.  

“It appears to me and a lot of other people that there are a few people deciding this is the way to go,” he said.  

Charlie Keniston, a longtime member of the committee, agreed.  

“Sometimes we have people in here who rock the boat and they get called out. It seems like there are a handful of officers … who really run this group but couldn’t run it with all these people that make up the 70 members. I think people listen to those people more and oftentimes people are afraid to speak up and say what’s on their mind,” Keniston said.  

He offered the theory, which he said “everyone in this room knows” that the changes were to preempt a fight for nomination for Town Council chairman between Nancy Nickerson and CJ Thomas. Clark said the changes had nothing to do with the chairmanship.  

Under the updated process, Clark explained, the Screening Committee’s chosen slate of candidates will be presented to the Town Committee in July and any additional Republicans would have the opportunity to primary in September.