Letter: What's the Secret, GOP Town Committee?

Jan. 10, 2011

Letter to the Editor:

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  As a former member of the Darien RTC, I'm concerned that we are seeing it happen in my own political party here in Darien.

In the January 5 issue of the Darien Times, a legal notice reads that, in addition to voting for Republican Town Committee members to serve for a new term, the January 17, 2012 caucus is being held "for the purpose of ... voting on amendment of rules of the Darien RTC."

The text of the amendment to be voted upon is MISSING.  In fact, I could not find the text of the proposed amendment to the rules anywhere in this paper or anywhere else.  This is OUTRAGEOUS!  Why the secrecy?  This sounds like a roll-back to the darkest days of our local party.  Over the years, many of us worked hard to bring transparency to the RTC.  And where there is a lack of openness, corruption occurs.  "He who controls the rules, controls the outcome." What are the current Republican leaders keeping secret ... and why?

I urge all Republicans to push back and reject these shenanigans.  Under the current local party rules (re-written by an earlier RTC just two years ago "so that Darien's RTC had the most open and best practices' in the state") any NEW AMENDMENT MUST BE PUBLISHED TEN DAYS IN ADVANCE as part of the caucus call. This was done so that each Darien Republican had the opportunity to decide to attend the caucus  to cast a vote yea or nay on the amendment/amendments.

Without this timely publishing of the proposed amendment, NO VOTE SHOULD BE ALLOWED!

Ronnie Carey

Editor's note: For Bob Bewkes' response to criticism about the caucus notice, please see: "GOP Chairman Defends Caucus Notice." For the Darien Patch event listing of the meeting, please see "Republican Town Caucus Vote on Candidates, Rules."