Scott's Campaign Notebook No. 1!

Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day Weekend was the first big volunteer outing for our campaign, and I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about representing our slice of Northern Hamden on the Legislative Council if elected. A couple of folks from the Quinnipiac Democrats, some other volunteers and I met at the Giant View Cafe around 10AM and managed to knock on about 100 doors — if you were one of the Hamdenites that weren’t home when one of our volunteer groups came around, you probably have a campaign flier waiting at your door.

If there’s one thing that I have noticed, and volunteers for this campaign told me at the end of the Saturday outing, is how much pride and passion people in Hamden have for their community and how much they want to be part of the solution. Every person I spoke to understood that we have a long-term pension problem and that the issue didn’t flare up overnight — they also understand it is going to take a long time to work us back from the brink. Every person I spoke to understands that too many of our children are struggling in Hamden schools, and they understand we can’t fix them overnight. But they want to have their voice heard and, when all they feel is the uncertainty around mill rate increases and political sniping, I understand why they feel like it’s not.

One simply cannot be a faithful representative of 9th district residents unless they feel like when they e-mail or call (and so on), that it’s more than just going through the motions of constituent service. That’s why I’ve made access and transparency a core principle of my campaign. I’ll be back out there later in the week and next weekend, and I can’t wait to talk to more 9th district voters about the future of our town.

Scott Harris Jr. is the Democratic candidate for 9th District Legislative Council. You can read more him and his campaign by visiting http://www.scottharrisjr.com.