If not, then Jill Oberlander is your clear choice — just ask Tony Turner

Fred Camillo (cap) and rabid Luddite

Are ”friendly and nice” the best qualifications for First Selectman? A letter to the editor of Greenwich Free Press insists that they are not, and urges support for Nasty Jill Oberlander instead. Just two months ago, Oberlander demonstrated her right to inherit the title “Queen of Mean” by tossing her former friend and fellow candidate Tony Turner under the bus, leaving him to pay $75,000 in fines for violating campaign finance laws while insisting, despite dozens of emails to the contrary, that she had no idea that Turner was spending $350,000 to promote the Democrat slate of BET candidates. She was shocked, shocked to discover what was being done in her name. Uh huh.

The letter writer goes on to cite Fred Camillo’s votes in the state senate, votes which, ironically, the correspondent claims refute Camillo’s reputation as a friendly, nice guy. In fact, those votes do reveal true compassion and concern for the poor, and contrast sharply with Oberland’s own gooey, feel-good plans to ruin them.

Camillo voted against increasing the minimum wage to $15, thereby ensuring that the unskilled and unlettered can continue to find work. The true minimum wage is zero — Camillo tried to preserve the opportunity for the least employable among us to find jobs, while Oberlander works to opposite effect.

Camillo voted to cut UConn funding, so that its bloated administration would be reduced, lowering the cost of a college education. And if those cuts had been enacted and fewer degrees in modern dance psychology granted, thousands of deceived youngsters could have been spared the crushing debt incurred by obtaining worthless degrees.

Camillo opposes the destruction of the state’s power supplies, a goal endorsed by the partisan “Connecticut Conservation Voters.Org”, which has blocked construction of any new natural gas pipelines and power plants in the state, and advocates the dismantling of all existing power plants, including our only zero-emission nuclear plant. Which is kinder: Camillo fighting to keep the state’s economy viable and electrical bills affordable, or Oberlander’s desire to quadruple electric bills before returning Connecticut to a pre-Industrial Revolution society? Oberlander would solve the problem of paying for electricity by eliminating it; that will please her fellow crazies, but others may not wish to join her in her deluded environmental ecstasy.

None of these positions relate to our local election, of course, which should be focused on the proper running of the dog warden’s office and maintaining our roads, but just as Bill De Blasio abandoned New York City to save the world (much to New Yorkers’ relief, mind you), Oberlander insists that national issues are the proper focus of Greenwich’s town government. If I could be sure that she would in fact spend her time pressing for recycled toilet paper and transgender jail cells in our state prisons, I’d be content with her assuming office here. As it is, I fear that she’ll bring her sensitivities and cruelty to 101 Field Point Road, and that would be a pity.