Dan vs. Anne: East Lyme first selectman's race a rematch

As Published in The Day by Jack Lakowsky

East Lyme — The race for the town's chief elected official is a rematch between incumbent Democratic First Selectman Dan Cunningham and Republican challenger Anne Santoro, who lost to Cunningham in 2023 by 93 votes.

It's also the first election since the first selectman's term was extended from two years to four.

"There isn't a vast number of votes to have to make up, so I feel my chances are very good in that regard," Santoro said recently. "Let alone what's happening with residents not being happy with what they're seeing."

Cunningham on Monday pointed to his accomplishments during his first term, such as creating a Fair Rent Commission in response to pleas from seniors whose landlord raised their rents up to $1,000. He also pointed to efforts to improve coastal resiliency and preserve open space such as Oswegatchie Hills, Hathaway Farms and Raven Woods.

"That was, I think, an important accomplishment," Cunningham said.

An attorney, Cunningham was first elected to the Board of Selectmen in 2015. He has run his own law firm for almost 30 years, based in a building a few hundred feet from Town Hall.

"I feel I am particularly qualified to be first selectman," Santoro said recently, while sitting at Cafe Sol in downtown Niantic. She has served in town government for almost a decade, spending four years on the Board of Finance, leading a subcommittee that disbursed millions of dollars in COVID-19 pandemic relief money. She was deputy first selectman from 2021 to 2023.

Currently, she serves as co-chairwoman of the town's Short Term Rental Committee and formerly served as chairwoman for the Intellectual Property Section of the Connecticut Bar Association.

"Something I'm very proud of is how many leadership roles I was required to fulfill and take on," the Providence native and attorney said.

To develop, or not to develop

Officials and residents often cite overdevelopment of the town as a critical issue. The town has engaged in legal battles with several developers, who allege the town actively fights the development of housing, especially affordable housing, using weapons like moratoriums and sewer capacity limits.

It recently made moves to block large housing developments and is preparing to ask the state for a temporary exemption to affordable housing laws that allow developers to bypass local control if their projects promise lower-cost dwellings.

Santoro said if elected, she would question state legislators on that rule, which makes it much harder for municipal zoning boards to deny housing developments, unless 10% of the Town’s entire housing stock is considered affordable as defined under state law (8-30g). Santoro said for towns like East Lyme, with limited infrastructure, the feasibility of the 10% is doubtful.

"That is something many have criticized in the past and continue to criticize, that the blanket percentage doesn't work," Santoro said.

On the town's recent move to stop large housing developments from connecting to the sewer system, Cunningham said accusations that the town's recent ordinance that blocks any large housing development from connecting to sewers, effectively stopping them being built in the first place, miss the point of the moratorium.

"We want to make sure we don't get in a position where we've allocated more sewer capacity than we have to give," he said. "A corollary to that is that it does have the effect of limiting development."

Cunningham also chairs the Water and Sewer Commission, which pushed for the moratorium.

"You can't have structured, good growth unless you have the adequate sewer capacity first," he added. "So my goal is, let's secure adequate capacity, then figure out what we do."

Police scandal

"As everybody knows, I steered the town through the morass of problems with the police department," Cunningham said, referring to the arrest and subsequent retirement of former Police Chief Mike Finkelstein and a report that former Detective Mark Comeau improperly arrested a man who spent months in prison. Department leadership mishandled the Comeau case, the report said.

Cunningham has previously committed to restoring the public's trust in the department and to restoring police morale.

"We have a new police chief that is on task and excellent," Cunningham said.

Cunningham said as time moves on and the makeup of the Board of Police Commissioners shifts, he wants to see fewer members who have law enforcement backgrounds. Several commission members are retired municipal or state police officers. The selectmen appoint the board members.

"If you're going to be regulating the police, I think it's important not to have the same loyalties," Cunningham said.

Santoro criticized the town's handling of the Finkelstein scandal, saying it should've been clearer with the public about how it would navigate the fallout. She said Cunningham and the police commission failed to engage the public as it searched for and hired a new police chief.

She said it was a mistake to have Finkelstein, who was cleared of charges after a diversionary program and retired, on "this sort of interminable administrative leave."

"I could see doing that at the beginning," Santoro said. "Once a scandal breaks, you have a certain period of time of everyone getting on their feet."

But the town should've been quicker to tell Finkelstein it would've been in everyone's best interest for him to retire and "not put the town through this anymore."