{news} Colin Bennett in the Middletown Press

[David Bedell]

Here's an Oct 24 article from the Middletown Press:
http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17367865

10/24/2006
Candidates challenge 14-year incumbent for 33rd District seat
By: Stan Fisher

Eileen Daily has not lost a race for the 33rd District Senate seat in 14 
years, a record that deters Salvatore Nucifora and Colin D. Bennett not a 
bit.

Nucifora, 37, a Republican from East Hampton, is making his first attempt at 
elective office in challenging Daily, the veteran Democrat from Westbrook.

This is Bennett's second campaign as the Green Party's candidate for the 
seat, but this year he is also running as the party's nominee for state 
comptroller.

A 32-year resident of East Hampton, Nucifora says he understands the 
challenge but points out, "I'm not a career politician, and people seem to 
like that."

He says his talks with voters revealed a disenchantment with Daily's track 
record for the smaller communities in the 12-town district.

An environmental activist in Westbrook and a campaign organizer for the 
nonprofit group Clean Water Action, Bennett, 27, has a clear understanding 
of his prospects, and of the inspiration for his candidacy, he said.

"I don't have any illusions ... I'm running to give people a choice" outside 
the two-party system, he said.

Daily, 63, a former Westbrook first selectwoman first elected to the state 
Senate in 1992, has defeated her Republican challengers for the seat by 
large margins in recent elections, winning with 68 percent of the votes in 
the 2004 elections.

The motivation for her eighth Senate campaign, she says, is that "there's 
still so much work to do," particularly in her role as Senate chairwoman of 
the influential Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee.

Daily says "getting the biggest bang for the buck" as the legislature 
continues to evaluate the state's tax structure is an important task of the 
committee.

And, "We're going to need a steady hand at the helm" of the finance 
committee as the legislature addresses transportation issues.

While Nucifora lacks Daily's legislative experience, he says he has equal 
skills in working with people and problem-solving.

"My work experience is as a mechanical engineer. I'm now with Electric Boat, 
but I've worked with large and small companies ... and my main focus is to 
come up with solutions for problems and bring people together in solving 
them."

Nucifora wants to revise state and local taxes on small-business people, 
eliminating property taxes on assets if the enterprise earns $20,000 or 
less.

"Now you have to pay taxes on Post-it notes and sandpaper," he says. "My 
cousin has a small deli; he has to pay taxes on cheese and meat."

He also wants tax relief for the elderly, including deferred property taxes 
and eliminating income taxes for working elderly.

Bennett said his candidacy on the Green Party ticket appeals to voters, and 
he hopes to improve on his 2004 showing while planning ahead for the 2008 
election.

His "to do" list includes his own concerns - education and the environment 
among them - but he says, "I will represent the people of the 33rd District, 
and their problems and concerns. Their problems become your problems (as an 
elected official), and not the other way around."

For Daily, the top priority is medical care: "It's such a big problem - we 
have to come up with something," she says, such as a state health insurance 
plan.

Daily is also calling for wider availability of early-childhood education, 
for the state to assume the cost of special education and for the state to 
fully pay the educational cost-sharing component of local school budgets.

Finally, Daily says, "We have a serious need to review and possibly revise 
state policies on energy."


©The Middletown Press 2006

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