Republicans change minds, will debate

WINSTED — Local Republican candidates have apparently had a change of heart and will be participating in a Board of Selectmen candidates debate on Thursday, Oct. 27, at The Gilbert School.Originally, in an interview with The Winsted Journal two weeks ago, Republican Committee Chairman David Cappabianca said that Republican candidates would not participate in the debates.Cappabianca said that he, along with other members of the party, do not like the proposed debate format, which would have all of the candidates up on stage at once.At the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Monday, Oct. 17, during the public comment portion of the meeting, resident Mike DeClement criticized the Republican candidates.“I want to talk about the lack of discourse in town,” DeClement said. “It started with the last [selectmen’s] administration with [Selectmen Ken Fracasso] and his group of guys who moved the public comments portion to the very end of the selectmen’s meeting. It is a pretty well known ploy to disenfranchise the public from speaking. Moving on to this year, I read in the paper that the Republicans refused to attend the debates. Again, a lack of public discourse. The kids at Gilbert are trying to learn a lesson here about freedom of speech.”“Once again, we can thank the local papers for this misinformation,” Fracasso said to DeClement. “Well before Friday’s paper was published, I contacted [Debate organizer and Gilbert School Political Science Teacher Donald Goetz] and he was kind enough to move the debate to 7:15 p.m., back 15 minutes. Republican candidates have a scheduled live [public access television] show from 6 to 7 p.m. With only two shows left before the election, we felt that it was important to get the message out to the entire town.”

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