2025 Patch Profile: Sijie Jason Wang, West Hartford Town Council

WEST HARTFORD, CT — West Hartford Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as Election Day draws near.

Sijie Jason Wang is running for the West Hartford Town Council as a Republican.

The following is Sijie Jason Wang's questionnaire sent to Patch:

Candidate's Name: Sijie Jason Wang

What office are you seeking? Town Council

What town do you live in? West Hartford

Party Affiliation: Republican

Occupation: Physician (internal medicine and addiction medicine) - 11 years

Family: I have a super supportive, patient wife and two kids — my daughter, age 7, and son, age 4

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? No

Previous public office, appointive or elective: I have not.

Why are you seeking this office?

I want our town government to be better at delivering results for the people of West Hartford. I want our government to be more responsive to citizens' needs.

I want to make our community stronger and to rebuild West Hartford's role as an engine of opportunity for striving individuals and families.

Although I think it's wonderful that West Hartford draws highly successful individuals, I am worried that we are becoming economically unsustainable and will price out too many people, especially young people (including our own children), working or middle-class families, and empty nesters/retirees.

I am very concerned that our housing market has become too dysfunctional and our tax dollars are not always being wisely spent, which damages the social contract and the American Dream that our country stands for.

Living standards are likely to fall for future generations, and I think that is absolutely unacceptable.

Local leaders can do something about that.

My colleagues and I have an achievable housing plan that is based on national, proven-effective, market-based, bipartisan reforms, which we have adapted to our unique community.

Our proposal respects and actually enhances our traditional New England character while providing opportunities for unsubsidized, market-priced homeownership and investment in our town.

We have achievable budget proposals to reduce excessive gold-plated infrastructure spending, reduce consultant expenditures, insource special ed in some circumstances, and invest in the values that we hold common.

I want our government to be much more responsive to public safety, and especially road safety concerns.

Everyone sees it when they are out in town: the speeding, red light running, and uncivil behavior.

I will fight for more resources for our police department, because they are working very hard and make a huge contribution to our town on a very modest budget.

Enforcement is a critical aspect of stopping the madness and danger on our roads.

I have fought very, very hard for safety issues, such as advocating for traffic calming on critical routes to schools.

Some of our town policies are unnecessarily onerous. There is a focus on excessive process over actual results that make people's lives better.

It is far too difficult for parents to get very simple interventions on their streets to make it safer for their kids to go out, such as speed bumps.

Other municipalities have much simpler processes, while West Hartford's neighborhood traffic calming process almost seems obstructionist on purpose.

Too many parents have fought for safer neighborhood streets and have either given up or else it took so long that their kids grew up.

As another example, some of our pedestrian crossings, such as at Memorial and South Main, provide so little pedestrian time that there is almost no hope for children or elders to cross in time, and even spry adults struggle.

We also need our town to be much firmer in getting safety changes (meaningful results, not endless meetings) from CT DOT on state-owned roads.

Roads such as Route 44, Route 189, and New Britain Avenue cut through our town and disproportionately contribute to deaths and injuries, and we have not had an adequate response from the CT DOT.

I want our town to work better for young people and young families.

You may notice that the Republican slate includes several young people, including parents of children in our public schools.

Focusing on young families, of course, includes addressing our cost of living, but it also includes protecting our children's mental health.

I strongly support our Board of Ed in pursuing a bell-to-bell smartphone ban.

I strongly support initiatives to make our neighborhoods safer, which will help parents feel more comfortable letting their children build their independence.

I will work with the private sector to increase the availability of before- and after-school care.

I support nongovernmental initiatives such as "Wait Until 8th" and "Let Grow" to further protect our kids from some of the negative effects of smartphones and social media addiction, and to get them back into a more traditional childhood.

I think widespread marijuana legalization is very risky for our adolescents, and I support strong measures to limit accessibility to young people.

Finally, I strongly feel that we must stand as one people, one nation, indivisible.

I want to emphasize our common values and goals as Americans.

I want less demonization of each other. I am worried about growing antisemitism, including threats against our Synagogues, ugly behavior towards Jewish members of our community, and destruction of pro-Israel signs.

I am disheartened by incidents of racism and recent attacks on free speech, including free political expression.

I am worried that our boys and men are struggling in many ways, and that rather than receiving support, their concerns are being marginalized.

We are all in this together.

We have diverse views on how to fulfill the promise of West Hartford and of America, yet we are working towards the same goals.

Thank you so much for reading and voting.

The single most pressing issue facing my constituents is ____, and this is what I intend to do about it: Loss of a sense of community

I think this is related to our dangerous, uncivil streets, the rising cost of living that both prices people out and makes our town more economically homogenous, and our increased isolation.

What are the major differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I have pushed for and helped deliver results for West Hartford citizens, particularly on road safety.

I felt that throughout 2023 and 2024, our town was not acting urgently enough to make our streets safe.

I worked with other successful municipalities to identify best practices and identified key engineering interventions that could deliver improved safety in 2025 at a reasonable cost.

I fought very hard to get these interventions into the ground.

I also created the priority list that focused initial quick-build interventions on school zones within the "high injury network" (roads on which people had been seriously hurt or killed).

I have actionable, realistic plans and a real vision for how to address the challenges facing West Hartford.

While most agree that our cost of living is out of control, I can identify very clear areas for improvement within our budget and will work towards very clear housing interventions that are empirically shown to improve natural (not subsidized) affordability.

Through my medical practice, I am a small business owner in town.

I am the parent of two young children.

I understand the challenges that West Hartford faces now and into the future.

I serve patients who are struggling with addictions, and try to help them rebuild their lives.

In addition to Connecticut, I have lived and worked in communities like St. Louis, Cleveland, Youngstown, rural New Hampshire, and Vermont.

I get the struggles of regular Americans. As an immigrant myself, I understand the promise of the American Dream. I will fight for you.

What other issues do you intend to address during your campaign? See above.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence that you can handle this job? See above.

What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?

Never take for granted the opportunities and the life that this country has given me, and find ways to give back.