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Letter to the Editor: Norwalk Used to be About Community and Common Sense not Radical One-Party Control

November 10, 2025
–
Liz Conti

The results of the Municipal Election of 2025 are finally in, after talk of tabulator issues, and shutdown of public reporting of results, which came as no surprise. The same old, same old every election result in this town is finally announced and unfortunately as expected, not representative of the populous at large. The Democratic Machine is alive and well in this town. It seems to control everything and much like George Orwell’s fiction novel “1984”

Quoted from the book: 

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into history and became truth.” 

Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. 

I am not sure if children in today’s public schools are even required to read this novel, as used to be the case, as a fantastic piece of literature teaching the importance of critical thinking, and outlining the result of its intended demise. Following the “party” or any “social mass manipulation of thought through propaganda control” was the plot as explained in Orwell’s provocative novel about the future. Though 1984 did not come to be at the time intended by the fiction novel, it certainly seems to be the eerily consistent with the way of things we see in our current time circa the 2001 second millennium. 

It also speaks poignantly to the danger of one-party control and how that does not bode well to progress, and implements fear and control as a means of governance. Using censorship and controlled messaging as a means to quell all other voices outside the intended and implemented narrative of those in control. 

Those who are the “sheep” in said narrative and as I wish to correlate to some of what I see in the reality this former community of Norwalk passing away quickly, are led to disparage and marginalize all voices that decree anything anesthetically inconsistent to the “approved narrative” of the controlling “party”. 

For a city like Norwalk, approaching 100k in population, to be led by one party and exuding power that seems to silence a large portion of society, I suggest that this cannot be conducive to a productive future that serves and respects the Constitutional rights of all citizens in a viable way. 

What is the path forward to returning a “community” focus for Norwalk? Introducing a citizen council of folks dedicated to working to bring the voices of the community unrepresented into the conversation. I look to advocate for the many voices that have been branded “MAGA” or “INDEPENDENT” regarding other critical issues, who are being censored and not being heard in our governance. If such voices are automatically disparaged by leadership, so are the many people that live here and seek the advocacy of such a group committee dedicated to listening to them and seeking to speak for them to have some chance of being heard. 

I am hoping to present this idea to the new administration and the new mayor-elect as a way to bridge a gap that is a gaping hole presently to the future success of this town. A potential community-focused success that can be better realized by including the voices that are left by the wayside for absurd and divisive reasoning, the likes of which have no value to morality, ethics or critical thought. To exclude large groups of people in order to pursue party power is not a positive vision or a viable means to an end that is valuable to representing all of Norwalk. 

To those of you who make it your life’s work to cite me and my views negatively, and tag team as a game disparaging me on not this publication, but also on social media, you do not intimidate me nor challenge my beliefs or goals. In fact, you energize me in the competition of pointing out how wrong you are in your thinking, especially when you use negativity and insults instead of articulating your position, a sign of being a sheep rather than being an intelligent advocate of your own positions and reasoning. I welcome respectful debate and will engage in that respectfully any day, but I will also point out propaganda-fueled divisiveness and negativity for what it is, and how it has no viable purpose to positive and formidable future endeavors that will seek to benefit all of us in the Norwalk community. 

Liz Conti 

Norwalk Republican Town Committee Member

Editor’s note: This piece is an opinion article. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the perspectives of the publication or its staff.

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Comments

8 responses to “Letter to the Editor: Norwalk Used to be About Community and Common Sense not Radical One-Party Control”

  1. Benjamin Hanpeter

    Clearly the message of the R’s and I’s isn’t resonating, or they would have picked up some seats. Simple as that.

    1. Bryan Meek

      Anyone who has paid attention to actual election data over time can clearly see that tuesday was a No Kings response. A six term former police chief never got above 9000. I’m fine with it. The supermajority owns 100% of the issues on the horizon which are not going to be good for taxpayers or our schools.

      The irony is that one of the No Kings primary sponsors, the Walmart heiress, is a billionaire who owes a large part of her fortune from the successful lawsuit her family won in Walton v. commissioner where her family fortune was shielded from taxes using grantor retained annuity trust tax loopholes. On top of that Walmart receives 25% of the Snap money without which they would lose billions. What a joke.

    2. David Muccigrosso

      IMO their electoral problem is this:

      Their central message right now is basically a five-legged stool of “NIMBYism, whining about education, immigration, crime, and taxes, often all in the same breath”.

      Now, to be clear, however much I disagree with that, it’s actually pretty baseline popular! The typical Norwalk swing voter is pretty sympathetic to them! Particularly on the NIMBY issue, a decent plurality of Democrats even agree with them.

      But therein lies the problem. The median Norwalk voter is 5-10 points to the left of the swing point. Moreover, the Democratic establishment that actually runs things and campaigns, basically comes down somewhere between the swing point and median voter, while throwing red meat to the base on the side (it’s not hard, and mostly symbolic). So the swing voters, the NIMBYs, etc, already get a lot of what they want from the establishment! The citywide ADU rezone got blocked; the current mayor is a former cop, and broadly speaking those sympathetic to Norwalk Republicans’ positions take up the majority of public feedback time at city proceedings.

      Norwalk Republicans appear to observe this, and imagine that if they can just delegitimize the red meat, a bunch of otherwise liberal voters will magically come to their side since they already agree with them. But this fails to contend with the fact that the red meat is what KEEPS them onside. “Gettable” Democratic voters in Norwalk aren’t merely tolerating anti-ICE messaging because it gives them apartments; they’re tolerating the apartments because they really, truly hate what ICE is doing.

      So, @Liz, @Brian, heck any other Republican listening, here’s some free campaign advice: If I were a Republican on board with their entire platform, I’d flip on the ICE stuff and use THAT as the hook to get voters on board.

      I’d also sacrifice SoNo and Downtown to the developers in exchange for a permanent deal: No upzones of current SFH neighborhoods, and no more than some X% annual increase in property taxes for those neighborhoods. Because right now, the NIMBY platform offers NOTHING to the developers to get them on your side, so duh they back the Dems. But I’m pretty sure Spinnaker doesn’t give two rat’s farts about building a tower in Cranbury, and as major tax incentive beneficiaries themselves, they’ll respect the hustle of demanding a tax freeze for yourselves.

      Again, free advice, it’s what I’d do.

  2. David Muccigrosso

    Liz, to be frank, I don’t oppose your *conservatism* — I myself consider my politics to be on the deep conservative end of the progressive spectrum — but your *approach*.

    Railing against “one party rule” doesn’t solve the problem. Our national system of state parties, designed by Martin van Buren and later consolidated into primaries after the Civil War, inherently leads to a national two-party system, which means that the majority of states will be dominated by either party. And thus at the granular level of cities and towns like ours, it’ll be even worse.

    Do you not imagine that red-state and red-town liberals feel the same way you do?

    The problem isn’t Norwalk. It’s the entire country. It’s not going to get solved here unless we fix the electoral rules that create this horrific abomination. We need ranked-choice voting, multiple-member districts, and other methods that allow for multiple parties to thrive, rather than force them to consolidate into two ugly coalitions. Diffusion of power among multiple parties is more in line with the Founders’ vision of “ambition countering ambition” than forcing the entire country to pick one of two warring tribes that have consolidated power at every level of government.

    Your approach is simply not correctly scaled to the scope of the problem. And that’s why your objections to the problem seem to go unheard.

    1. Liz Conti

      David, very interesting observations, which I see your perspective on. But I do think diversity in governing and both parties talking to each other to actually get back to solving problems is where we should be going. Constant divisiveness gets the city and the country nowhere. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

      1. David Muccigrosso

        You aren’t going to get “diversity” by demanding Affirmative Action For Republicans. That goes against every Republican value!

        You get it from Proportional Representation. Seats for votes, not seats for losing votes. Under PR, Republicans would have their 40% of seats for 40% of the vote, roughly, not get a couple scraps tossed at them. And if the Greens and WFP and others wanted to split off from the Dems, and the Libertarians from the Republicans, THEN we’d have something approaching TRUE diversity.

        But until then? AA For Republicans is just a dog-and-pony show. For your own dignity, your side should want no part in it. You aren’t winning anything but a cozier spot as the Democrats’ lapdog.

  3. Becca Stoll

    Liz, I would encourage to get involved in one of the many commissions that serve the city, where we do attempt to do the work of making sure the voices of Norwalkers are heard.

  4. Broderick Sawyer

    There’s a lot to unpack in the comments here. To clarify my position, I do not care what political affiliation you are. We are all Norwalk residents and it’s really that simple. As a newly elected unaffiliated council member I would like residents to speak to each other in a respectful fact based manner. I’ll do my best to be accessible, responsive and transparent with answers for residents in my time on the council.

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