East Haddam Republicans Hold Campaign Fundraiser

All politics, the saying goes, is local and that couldn’t have been more true Sunday night when the East Haddam Republicans kicked off their 2011 campaign season with a party for, well, the local party.

The event, held at the home of Selectman Emmett Lyman and his wife, Dora, serves as one of the local GOP’s three major fundraisers of the year, said Republican First Selectman Mark Walter, who is seeking re-election this year.

Another fundraiser was held in the early spring, said Town Clerk Deb Dennete, who also is seeking re-election and who was busy Sunday afternoon getting coolers of drinks ready for the bash. The third fundraiser, she said, will be held next month.

Walter was on hand early for the party to help set up tables and folding chairs next to an in-ground pool behind the Lymans’ rambling Victorian home on Town Street. He said the fundraisers generally attract about 50 party loyalists and their families and raise about $1,500 each. There’s no fee to attend, but donations are greatly appreciated and usually the order of the day, Walter said.

The party was a potluck gathering and participants each brought a favorite dish. Others chipped in by buying beer, wine and soda.

“We probably spend as much as we raise,” Emmett Lyman joked.

One of Lyman’s prize contributions to the event was the Colonial pumpkin pies he bakes. The pies, model after the way early settlers here made them, are a kind of pumpkin custard cooked directly in the pumpkin. The result is a rich, sweet concoction that Lyman proudly ladled out to a guest at his home on Sunday.

While some of his recently-purchased egg-laying chickens cooed in a nearby enclosure and a rooster crowed elsewhere on the property, Walter and his wife, Nancy Walter, socialized with guests under a gazebo near the pool. There was plenty of small talk with a sprinkling of politics thrown in as Walter talked about the recent campaign kickoff party Democrats held and disparaging comments made by Democratic Town Chairman Brad Parker about the job Walter and Republicans have been doing. One of those comments had to do with the way the town has handled the middle school project, which Walter and other Republicans at the kickoff event said was particularly unfair.

“I wasn’t even in office then,” Walter said.

Running this year on the Republican ticket in East Haddam are:

First Selectman – Mark Walter

Selectman – Emmett Lyman

Town Clerk – Deb Denette

Treasurer – No Nomination

Tax Collector – Denise Dill

Board of Assessment Appeals – Justin Kennedy

Board of Education – Tracey Gionta and William Barney

Board of Finance – Susan Link

Library Directors – Patrice Veselak, William Denny, John Bielot, Celina Nelan, Barbara Kiley and Louise Pear

Planning & Zoning (Regular member) – Lou Salicrup

Planning & Zoning (Alternate member) – Ed Gubbins, Jr.