LTE: Promises Without Power: What Senator Hwang Knows and Isn’t Saying

To the Editor:

Senator Tony Hwang’s recent campaign ads focus on town planning and zoning, crucial issues. Unfortunately, his approach is cynical and designed to provoke anger and fear, using loaded words that suggest government overreach: “mandates,” “forced regionalization,” and unwanted “density.”

His ad makes a simplistic and false promise: only I can fix it. Elect him First Selectman and he will “push back.” That is rage bait, meant to stir contempt for local government, which he has been part of for more than 20 years.

His claims also misstate basic law. The First Selectman has no zoning authority. The office does not write zoning regulations, does not approve or deny applications, does not control the independently elected Town Plan and Zoning Commission (TPZ), and cannot override 8-30g.

Put plainly, Senator Hwang is asking voters to elect him to an office that cannot deliver what he is promising. He knows this. Presenting this as a solution is intentionally misleading and insults Fairfield voters’ intelligence.

If Senator Hwang were serious about reforming 8-30g, he has had 16 years in the only place with legal authority to change it: the State Legislature in Hartford. Yet little meaningful 8-30g reform occurred during his tenure, even while he held leadership roles on planning committees.
Fairfield is now living with the predictable consequences. 8-30g proposals are advancing under a well-intended but poorly crafted law that was never fixed on his watch.

We have also seen the limits of Senator Hwang’s “help.” He showed up at Fairfield’s most heated planning and zoning meetings. Residents impacted by the 108 Biro Street project asked for assistance, with nothing to show. The project moved forward under the same framework he failed to reform. Now he claims he can fix it as First Selectman, an office with no authority over the very state law he still has the power to change.

If Senator Hwang is serious about the planning and zoning reform Fairfield needs, there are two honest options. He can keep his Senate seat, stay in Hartford, and do the reform work, instead of calling a special election for a job that cannot change 8-30g. Or he can run for Fairfield Town Plan and Zoning. TPZ is bipartisan and always needs qualified Republican commissioners. That is where zoning policy is written and implemented, not in the First Selectman’s office.

Fairfield voters deserve facts, not fear. Planning requires honesty, not promises without power.

Sincerely,
Jeff Randolph
Vice Chair of Fairfield Town Plan and Zoning Commission
30 year resident of Fairfield
The views expressed in this letter are my own and do not represent the official positions of any government agency, legislative body, or other organization with which I am affiliated.