Election 2021: Frank Bonzani Jr. Running For South Windsor PZC

SOUTH WINDSOR, CT — Frank Bonzani Jr. is running for the South Windsor Planning and Zoning Commission as a petitioning candidate.

Occupation: Operating Engineer Local #478, currently working at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant.

Family: I have 3 sons, Nicholas and Michael have graduated college and James who is in his junior year at Cornell University School of Engineering.

Experience: Currently serve as a Commissioner on Planning and Zoning for 11 years and was elected by the Commissioners as the current Secretary of P&Z. I previously served for 2 ½ years on the Public Building Commission for the Town of South Windsor.

Family in Government: My Uncle Peter Bonzani was on Planning and Zoning for the Town of East Hartford for over 15 years and retired to Florida 2 years ago.

The single biggest issue in town is __________, and I plan to do about it:

We need balanced growth while preserving farms and open space. I would like to see the Planning & Zoning Commission follow through with enacting a one-year moratorium on Residential/Multi-Family housing. This would give the newly elected Board of Education an opportunity to start planning their next 10-year plan without the additional burden of new residential development adding to student enrollment. This would only pertain to new development of 3 or more housing units. This moratorium would also give the Planning & Zoning the opportunity to do a comprehensive, across the board update to our regulations due to the recent State of CT mandates and begin planning for the review/citizen input/update of the
Town Plan of Conservation and Development.

Critical differences between me and my opponents:

Some of my opponents supported party lines regarding the Town referendum to purchase the Bank Building on Ellington Road and called it Smart Growth. I did not. I was one of the bi-partisan majority of Planning & Zoning Commissioners who gave an unfavorable review to the Town Councils plan to purchase the Bank Building, which was soundly defeated at the March referendum by the voters of South Windsor 82 percent to 18 percent. Experience matters! I have 11 years of experience on Planning and Zoning. Three of my opponents have little to no Planning and Zoning experience.

Accomplishments:

I am most proud of my 3 sons all attending college and all 3 having achieved the rank of Eagle Scouts. I was on the South Windsor Little League Executive Board for 10 years and was instrumental in building the Press Box/Concession stand at the Little League Complex. As a member of the Public Building Commission I was also involved in the building of the Firehouse
on West Street.

Other issues:

We need to do a comprehensive review of all our commercial and industrial regulations and their impact on our residents and preserve our natural resources. Our current regulations have faults in them that need correction, and this cannot be accomplished in a piecemeal fashion of one at a time, over a long period of time if we are to preserve the character of South Windsor.

What else would you like the voters of South Windsor to know about you?

This summer the Democrats chose a candidate selection process where only the members of the Democratic Town Committee (DTC) would have a vote in who was selected to be candidates on the November ballot. I could not even vote for myself as I was not a DTC member. I missed being on the ballot by 3 votes to 2 candidates who had no Planning & Zoning experience. I do feel politics had a role in this as I was one of the bi-partisan majority of Planning & Zoning Commissioners who gave an unfavorable review to the Town Councils plan to purchase the Bank building on Ellington Road. A lot of those DTC members voting at this meeting were the same people who were pushing to get that referendum passed. I still wanted to serve and had two choices: get signatures and take it to a primary, which would cost the town about $15,000 to hold, or get signatures to be on the November ballot as a petitioning candidate, not having a designated party affiliation. I wanted the voters of South Windsor to have the opportunity to support a candidate whose thinking and common sense is consistent with the voters of South Windsor. We need less town politics and more candidates who care about the residents of South Windsor. You will find my name on the Ballot as a Petitioning Candidate for Planning and Zoning.

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