Norwalk: Has Kydes Conceded District C Race?
In keeping with the stranger aspects of this municipal election year, Republican council member Nick Kydes has skipped the last 4 Common Council meetings. Heading into the election, this is unheard of. But it’s not just Common Council meetings, he’s also a member of the Building and Land Use Committee and the Planning Committee where he’s had difficulty attending even those meetings.
This can mean only one thing, Kydes is basically conceding the race.
The council meetings he missed include 6/26, 7/10, 7/24 and 8/14. That would be the entire summer meetings.
The Land Use and Building Management committee meetings he’s missed have been 2/15, 3/15, 4/5, 5/17 and 6/21. I should note that the most recent meeting minutes if 6/21 on the Norwalk web site.
Kydes has done better attending the Planning Committee meetings missing on the meeting of 5/3. Yet, the most recent approved meeting minutes was May 3rd, so we don’t know what he did for the summer meetings.
This horrendous attendance record of not just the council meeting but of the committee meetings shows that Kydes may be defacto conceding the election in the hotly contested district C council race. How can he campaign that he will represent the district best when he can’t manage to get himself to at least attend the meetings representing district C? It’s not as if district C has few issues at stake. Hot button issues include the flooding areas, the athletic fields at the schools, the vandalism at Andrews field, and the traffic on Strawberry Hill. Has Kydes been responsive to his constituents? That is up for the residents of district C to decide.
The remaining candidates, David Parks, Laurel Lindstrom, and Kevin Poruban will battle for the 2 spots. Poruban seems to also have an attendance problem, but not as obvious as Kydes.
What’s interesting in the work of the Land Use and Building committee is that this is where the details of proposed council actions gets reviewed. For instance in the June 21 meeting Norwalk High School construction issues were discussed including the “doubling of hazz mat monitoring” costs. Only Bill Krummel seemed startled by this.
In 2005, Nick Kydes won his seat with 1771 votes, second to Fred Bondi’s 1817 votes. Kevin Poruban came in last with 1630 and did not win a seat. Poruban was appointed to an at-large seat when a Democratic council member resigned.
