Waterford Goes All Democrats; Town Rushes to Save Waterford Beach

Well, I guess any week that features a Presidential election is a pretty busy news week. And this was no exception.

On Tuesday, America – and Waterford – voted to re-elect Barack Obama to a second term as president. , also voted Joe Courtney to another term in Congress and Chris Murphy to succeed Joe Lieberman in the US Senate. On the state level, Waterford again re-elected Betsy Ritter to her fifth-term as the representative of Connecticut’s 38th District and Andrea Stillman to her fifth term as the senator of Connecticut’s 20th District.

What do all those people have in common? All Democrats, as the party swept the board. Also, all those candidates are incumbents with the exception of Murphy, who was serving in the US House of Representatives before taking over Lieberman’s post.

Perhaps more interesting though than the real election was the mock election at Clark Lane Middle School. There, students split their ticket, voting for Obama for president but Republican Linda McMahon for senator. It was also interesting to interview the students and hear what issues were important to them, with many saying they were worried about gay rights, clean energy and, as it seemed to be the theme this election, “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

It wasn’t all election news though. The town was still recovering from Superstorm Sandy, as the storm damaged some areas that might take years to repair. Perhaps the best example of that is the sand dunes at Waterford Beach, which have protected the beach for all these years and prevents Alewife Cove from running right through the beach, meaning residents would lose access to it. The dunes were breached in three areas by the massive storm surge of Sandy, and now the town is figuring out ways to fix them.

On Monday there was an event very dear to Waterford Patch’s heart, the first ever trunk-or-treat event at Cohanzie Fire House. With the town telling residents not to trick-or-treat on Halloween, Waterford’s Shannon Mayer decided to hold a trunk-or-treat event at the firehouse as a Halloween make-up event. The event drew a huge turnout, which was spiced up by Jamkat, a husband and wife DJ duo that donated their time for the event

At the event, Patch collected non-perishable food items to give to Waterford’s interfaith food locker. On Thursday, we donated the food, and found out the interfaith food locker is busier than ever. Apparently the Great Recession has left more people than ever without food in Waterford, as people have lost their jobs or had their hours cut back.

In other news, a Quaker Hill man was sentenced to a year in jail after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography, it was revealed that Connecticut had the third-highest tax burden in the country, the alleged Crystal Mall peeping Tom was told to stay away from the mall and a Nor’easter struck Waterford. O, and a huge Patch shout out to this very deserving 17-year-old...