The Daily Five: Meet Candidates, Talk About Oswegatchie Hills, Enter Contests, Get Drugs Cheap

1. Today should be lovely! Weather.com is predicting a clear, sunny day with a high temperature of 65 degrees and an overnight low of 57 degrees. There's just a 20 percent chance of rain tonight.  

2. The Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce is hosting a candidates' forum at Old Lyme Memorial Town Hall tonight at 7:30. Here's who you'll meet:

• Candidates running for the 2nd District Congressional seat, incumbent Rep. Joe Courtney (D) and East Lyme First Selectman Paul Formica (R).
• State Senate candidates running for the 20th District: incumbent State Sen. Andrea Stillman (D) and rival Michael Doyle (R). 
• State House candidates running for the 33rd District (Lyme), incumbent State Rep. James Crawford (D) and challenger Art Linares (R).
• State House candidates for the 23rd District, incumbent Rep. Marilyn Giuliano (R) and challenger Adam Stillman (D).

Each candidate will be given 12 minutes to make a presentation and four minutes for rebuttals. There won't be any question and answer sessions but voters will have the opportunity to meet all of the candidates over refreshments at the end of the presentation.

Tim Griswold of the Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce, which is sponsoring this event, said the chamber did consider inviting third party and independent candidates but due to time constraints, members decided to limit the event to the two major party candidates running in the four electoral districts involved in Lyme and Old Lyme elections.  

3. After hearing that residents of Old Lyme and Lyme were getting prescription drug benefit cards, a number of East Lyme residents called Connecticut Conference of Municipalities asking whether they could have them too.

Accordingly, CCM's director of member services, who happens to be an East Lyme resident herself, made a presentation to the East Lyme Board of Selectmen last night explaining the program. Here are the highlights:

• It's free to residents and town-issued cards and all marketing materials are provided at no cost to the town. 
• All major pharmacies, including Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens, Stop & Shop and Big Y, participate in the program. The pharmacies offer the discounts to encourage repeat customers. 
• Cards would be mailed to every resident in East Lyme, could be used by any family member, and could be used immediately. 
• The cards can be used by anyone who has no prescription coverage. People who have prescription coverage with high deductibles can use the cards to fill in the gap, that includes people living with the donut hole in Medicare. 
• Cards offer discounts on brand-name and generic prescriptions, plus discounts on hearing tests and hearing aids, eye tests and prescription lenses, and Lasik surgery. 

The program, which is managed by ProAct, a New York state-based prescription benefit company, has been thoroughly vetted by CCM but the organization still recommends that towns run it past their attorneys before signing up. East Lyme Board of Selectmen voted to do that last night. They will vote on whether to enroll in the program at the next board meeting.  

If the board votes in favor of signing up, prescription discount cards should be in the mail within five to six weeks of enrollment. So far, 23 towns in Connecticut have signed up. 

4. East Lyme Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing tonight at 7:30 p.m. on proposed changes to regulations regarding affordable housing. which seeks to build a housing estate in the Oswegatchie Hills area. The specific changes are available to the public in the Land Use Office of East Lyme Town Hall. 

5. Organizers of the Lyme-Old Lyme Trivia Bee met last night and decided to give all of us procrastinators a break. They still have room for a few more teams, so if you want to sign up for the competition on Nov. 2 at Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School, you have until Monday to register. 

There's still time to enter Patch's Best Jack-O-Lantern Ever contest too. So far, we have no contenders but realizing that it might be a bit early for those of you who have yet to carve a pumpkin this year, I wanted to clarify that this competition is open to photographs of pumpkins that have long since rotted away. And though the rules say you have to be over 18 to enter, parents can enter pictures of pumpkins carved by kids.

So go ahead and post a picture. You've got nothing to lose and, if yours is the only entry, you're guaranteed to win! 

Now, to hone those trivia skills, here's our daily trivia question!

This Day in History

On October 18, 1967, Walt Disney releases a movie version of Rudyard Kipling’s  “The Jungle Book”.

Daily Trivia

What is the name of the Indian Python in “The Jungle Book”?

Yesterday's Answer: RICO is the acronym for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.

("This Day" and Daily Trivia is compiled by John Carroll.)