SPOTLIGHT: Winsted’s Candy Perez
For Winsted Selectwoman and former mayor Candy Perez, working collaboratively to pull the town out of financial strife from 2015 to 2021 is a major point of pride. “We had a transformative town manager, we had a very strong finance director, and we had the right board that wanted to work together. We knew what we were doing, we believed in the town, and, more importantly, all of our oars were all in the water together… We took ourselves from where we were… (and) restored financial policies, we restored the fund balance… People in the Northwest Corner used to make fun of us, and during those years they stopped, because we did such good work together...”
Perez thinks the issues facing Winsted are largely similar to what other municipalities in the state are experiencing. “Education costs…the cost shares from the State of Connecticut are plunging, plunged everybody this past year into big, major budget problems. And it's not going to get any better because they haven't increased the ECS (Education Cost Sharing) State share in a really long time to stay up with inflation.”
Perez is one of two Democrats on the board, Linda Groppo the other, both of whom are also the only women on the board. “The Democrats were a majority board from 2015 until 2023… I, in particular – when I'm mayor, I do things differently than most of the other mayors. I share a lot of information with all members of the board and include everybody, whether it's sending them some email information or something I learned from the town manager... It's not like that now…these past two years, when you're in a minority and they want to keep you in the minority… I still have a good leadership role, I've been able to be effective in what I participate in, but do I know I'm in a minority? Yes.”
This summer, she pushed for better transparency after voting hours were expanded for the Town Budget referendum, but the only notice was on the Republican Town Committee’s Facebook page. That did not constitute an official public notice. “The town manager wasn't even informed about it,” Perez told The Goshen News.
The budget ultimately passed 642-634. In the June 2nd Selectmen's meeting, following the budget vote, Perez laid out her concerns, remarking in that she was bringing it to the board when she could have filed a complaint with the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission. The video clip was later posted to a Facebook page with nearly 16,000 followers, stirring concern and discussion. Perez was in support of the budget, but it was nevertheless important to her to raise the issue on record.
“(It) was important for me to do it in the right way to solve the issue,” Perez said. “I also knew that if the budget vote had lost, then we might have been a little bit more upset. So we should talk about it no matter what, no matter which side we were on”.
As she reflects on her 22 years in Winsted government, one thing in particular sticks out. “It's the community. I've never felt unsafe in the community. I've always felt that there are people in town and if you went and asked them for a donation or you needed something, that they would help you out… It’s a nice place. We have restaurants here; you don’t have to go out of town to eat anymore. You can walk anywhere. It's the people.”
