Minutes of October 5, 2007 Meeting
Hosted by First Selectman Richard Smith and the Town of Deep River
at the Carriage House of the Deep River Historical Society

Present:  Curtis Johnson, Skip Haskins, Larry McHugh, Tom Marsh, Dick Smith, Phil Miller, James Spallone, Justin Good, John Kennedy, Gina Sopneski, Greg Shook, Grant Westerson, Peg Reyer, Glenn Reyer, Leslie Strauss, Donna Gilbert, Angus McDonald, Jr., Nancy Dahlstrom, Denise Learned, Bruce Watrous, Sirge and Marsha Orzech, Hope Matthies-Rayner, Marian Bairstow, Susan Huyberise, Peter Howard, Martin Heft, Susan Scott, Donna Gilbert, Tom Alexa, Bettie Perreault and others who did not sign the guest book.

Curtis Johnson opened the meeting at 8:15, welcomed everyone, thanked Dick Smith and the Town of Deep River for hosting the meeting. 

Curtis explained the ground rules for candidates speaking this morning:  the challenging candidate to speak first for each town, followed by the incumbent First Selectman; each to be allowed 5 minutes; after all candidates had spoken, questions/answers would be allowed as time permitted.  (For the purpose of these minutes, no commentary will be included.)

For Chester, Justin Good (D) challenging candidate spoke first, followed by Tom Marsh (R) incumbent.
For Deep River, John Kennedy (I) challenging candidate spoke first, followed by Richard Smith (D), incumbent.
For Essex, where there is no challenging candidate; the only presenter was Phillip Miller (D), incumbent.
There were no questions from the audience following all presentations.

Larry McHugh spoke of the loss of Rep. James Spallone’s father, Daniel Spallone this past summer and asked for a moment of silence in his memory, noting that Daniel Spallone had been a magnificent individual, an outstanding person who did a lot for the town, region and the state in many areas of public service.