Letters to the Editor
By Dave Mullane
George Carlin’s quote about the media: “Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn’t want you to know something, it won’t be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up.”
Is spot on and the most recent CT Examiner article on the Stratford mayor contest is a good example.
A principal funder of the CT Examiner is a GOP multi-millionaire from Old Lyme J. David Kelsey, and he is also a principal funder of Stratford’s local RTC which is headed by Lou Decilio. Last year Kelsey made a $2,000 donation to the SRTC to help with the cause along with a bunch of other $1,000 to local Stratford GOP PACs.
I imagine his name will be popping up for this year’s mayor race. It must be nice to have that kind of money and to have a news site to get the kind of slant you want on news reporting.
The recent article by Nick Sambides is a good example. The article states “Hoydick is running on her record as mayor, which includes eight years with just a single, 0.26% property tax increase” but that’s BS my property taxes have increased 9.07% under Hoydick.
In 2018 I paid $7,706 and last year in 2024 I paid $8,406.
Hoydick’s record on WPCA increases isn’t mentioned in the article but that’s worth reporting on. The RTC lost control of the council back in 2015 over the whole attempted sale of the WPCA and in the years leading up to proposed sale the GOP controlled councils kept increasing the rates from $280 in 2011 and topping out at $450 in 2015. Once some new folks were elected who weren’t part of the GOP Lou crew the rate came down to $396 in 2016 and it stayed at that rate for 6 years unchanged thru the 2017 mayor election and Hoydick’s re-election in 2021.
Once Hoydick’s 2nd term started the increases came. In 2022 it went up 22.22% to $484 and then in 2024 it went up 17.76% to $570. This being an election year I don’t expect an increase, and we may even see a decrease in order to crow about the rate being lower, we are going in the right direction so stick with Laura’s Team this fall. That’s how the game is played.
In the Sambides article it has Decilio talking about Chess putting it $11,005 of his own money into the race doesn’t put him on par with Hoydick . From the article:
“Hoydick leads Chess in funding accumulated from Jan. 1 to March 31 with $31,575 in individual and committee contributions to Chess’ $27,980 in those categories, according to reports filed at the Town Clerk’s office. Chess said this is a good start to a promising campaign, but Republican Town Committee Chairman Louis DeCilio sees it differently. Hoydick’s exploratory effort has $28,950 in individual contributions, $2,250 from committee contributions and $375 in “other monetary receipts,” according to her campaign’s paperwork. Chess has raised $15,975 in individual contributions, $1,000 from other committees and $11,005 in “other monetary receipts,” which covers his self-contribution, according to his campaign filings.
“For people to invest [$15,975] at that level, this early on, for a new candidate, I think is remarkable. That’s how I have perceived my reception here,” Chess said. But the fact that Chess self-financed $11,005 shows that the two candidates are not on-par, DeCilio said. Though she is expected to run for mayor, Hoydick is not yet a declared candidate, which would allow her to collect up to $1,375 in contributions from individuals. “You can raise a lot more money that way,” DeCilio said.”
When you look at filing from the Stratford RTC and various GOP Lou crew packs they get lots of funding from Sambides employer Kelsey.
Besides last year’s $2k donation to the RTC, Kelsey gave $1,000 to Stratford GOP PAC which is chaired by BoE Chairman & 2025’s most valuable Republican Henrick and Treasurer being 9th district Councilman Llewenlyn.
Kelsey gave $1,000 to the local Forrest to Shore Land Use PAC which is chaired by Republican Ron Tichy and its Treasurer is Town Council Clerk Paquette.
Kelsey gave $1,000 to the Pro Police PAC (which doesn’t do anything to help Stratford Police and their pension quest) that’s chaired by Bill Perillo and its treasurer is Lou Decilio.
These PACs all donated the max $375 to Hoydick’s recent campaign and thanks to Kelsey’s donations they had the money in their coffers to do it.
Sambides’s article has lots of comments from RTC chair Decilio and no comments at all from Hoydick while Dr. Chess took to the time to comment in the article. Lou does the talking for Laura.
Decilio blames the Democrats for the mill rate increase and says all is well with Team Laura. From him that’s true, Decilio has committed voter fraud at Town Hall in his position as registrar and he was never held accountable for it by Mayor Hoydick or the Stratford Democrats.
It’s too bad Sambides didn’t bring that up in this article but maybe Mr. Kelsey doesn’t want that subject touched since it involves GOP corruption. But why don’t the Stratford Democrats this stuff has been going on for years?
The CT Examiner did some great reporting on a voter fraud case down in Stamford where the Democrat Registrar was involved in the same type of shady stuff that Decilio did in Stratford Town. The Democrat got convicted and Decilio was never even investigated.
Decilio is interesting too with CEP scamming over the years cashing in on a lot of that grant money. While Democrats like former Stratford state senators Dennis Bradley and Ernie Newton get run through the courts with their scams nothing gets mentioned about Decilio. I contacted the reporter who was doing the Stamford case back in 2022 and told her how it was similar to a Stratford incident, the reporter was interested but then never followed up.
This year I contacted the CT Examiner about Democrat scams involving CEP and the editor stated he was interested and referred me to Sambides but once I included GOP involvement Sambides never followed up.
Coming into the 2025 election season Team Laura does have the upper hand with money and position but there is also a lot of baggage so we shall how it plays out and who’s slant of things get the most votes because that matters in elections.
