[ This piece appeared in the Windsor Journal on May 2, 2025 ]

Dear Neighbors,

Though I’ve lived in many places around the United States, I’m proud to have made Windsor my home. One thing I noticed right away when I started to get involved in local matters is Windsor’s deeply ingrained tradition of civility and bipartisanship. Even in the Land of Steady Habits, our civic culture stands out as civil, even cordial. Neighbors and political adversaries talk over beers and across fences. But in recent months, something in our civic culture has shifted, and not for the better.

During the Broad Street referendum in March, volunteers (especially women) were subjected to curses and epithets from passing cars. As I was putting up Yes signs in the Center, I was nearly struck by a pickup truck that veered out of its lane toward me, then sped through three red lights up Poquonock Avenue. Later, a prominent opponent of the project explained to me, in all seriousness, why someone might feel justified in attempting vehicular assault in the context of the referendum. This is not normal.

It didn’t stop there. During the same campaign, elected officials lied about crash statistics in the Center, facts that directly impact the physical safety of Windsor residents. Regardless of your views on lane widths, roundabouts, etc., our representatives have a duty to tell the truth, especially when it concerns public safety. These lies were amplified, and further distorted, by a local political action committee, “Concerned Windsor Citizens,” which, for all their supposed concern, repeatedly failed to meet even the most basic filing and attribution requirements under Connecticut campaign finance laws. They’ve paid several fines in recent months for these violations. Again, this is not normal.

Most recently, the same group ran an ad in this paper riddled with typos and grammatical errors, urging residents to “Make Note of who has those YES Signs as they are the One’s” [sic] who want to increase the town budget. Is this what we’ve come to—political discourse that reads like a ransom note?

The word “Orwellian” has become cliché in recent years, but sometimes the shoe fits. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four devotes entire chapters to the horror of a society where neighbors are encouraged to monitor and report on one another. He also warns of what happens when political actors view their opponents not just as wrong, but as inherently illegitimate. Once that idea sets in, all acts can be justified. That, too, is not normal.

I’ve been surprised by our reluctance to address this shift in political discourse in town. Yes, Windsor has a laudable tradition of civility. We don’t all have to agree: we won’t. But we should demand that civic and political groups engage the public with a good-faith commitment to the truth. We do not have to accept lies from public officials, and we absolutely cannot accept political intimidation. Civility without accountability does not serve the public good.

Sincerely,

Keller Glass