LYME — Candidates compete every two years for the seat of first selectman in most towns across Connecticut. But not in Lyme, where there have only been two contested elections so far this century. The last was in 2017. The one before that was in 2001.
This year, will be the third, pitting unaffiliated but Democratic-supported candidate Christine Zelek against Republican Thomas St. Louis.
So-called gentlemen’s agreements between Democrats and Republicans combining cross-endorsements and refraining from nominating competing candidates has resulted in recent years in few choices for local voters.
Resident Steve Gencarella called out the practice as an “anti-democratic movement in Lyme” in several letters to the editor published by CT Examiner. Proponents preferred it as a more genteel form of politics in a small town where it is sometimes difficult to find volunteers willing to run.
John Kiker, chair of the Democratic Town Committee and selectman seeking reelection, said he thought it was a positive that there was competition this time because it meant more people were getting involved in government.
“There’s not a lot of drama here,” Kiker said Tuesday after the Democratic caucus. “It’s not Old Lyme. This is not Old Saybrook. This is a small town.”
The bipartisan agreement began to break down in 2023 when Republican Mary Powell-St. Louis lost her reelection for the Board of Education to Democrat Gavin Lodge. It was the only seat contested in town that year.
That violated an unwritten rule for filling seats on the board, said Thomas St. Louis, who is married to Mary Powell-St. Louis, in an interview with CT Examiner on Wednesday. According to St. Louis, the parties had agreed not to contest the regional Board of Education, taking turns to nominate candidates and dividing the seats.
“It was always one Republican seat, one Democrat seat under that agreement. That changed in 2023,” St. Louis said. “They’re both Democrats currently. It’s the first time in three decades.”
Democrats ran against Powell-St. Louis on a campaign focused on her signature to a letter calling for the removal of a book, Let’s Talk About It, offering illustrated guidance on gender and sex from the tween-teen section of the Old Lyme Public Library.
The letter emphasized that they were “not advocating banning any books,” but rather questioning the availability of the book to children aged 11-19 in the tween-teen room of the library.
But called out for what critics said was an attempt to ban books, Powell-St. Louis was defeated.
St. Louis said Democrats used the issue to take the seat away from Republicans, not because of his wife’s performance on the board during her eight years in office.
Powell-St. Louis, who is chair of Lyme’s Republican Town Committee, will run alongside her husband for selectwoman but said she does not see that as a problem.
“We are a couple, but we’re not considering ourselves a team,” Powell-St. Louis said in a Wednesday interview. “We’ve been married 31 years, but we are individuals. We bring different strengths to the table. We sometimes vote differently. We have our own opinions.”
The couple said they did not expect a dirty campaign and both described their opponent, Christine Zelek, as a friend.
“One of the things that I had in an agreement with Christy up front is that we’re not going to jeopardize our personal relationship,” St. Louis said.
St. Louis also stressed that they were not going to compete for all the available positions, but had chosen them strategically. He mentioned the case of Jim Miller, a Democratic member of the Board of Finance who is seeking re-election and whom they respect, so they will not field a candidate against him.
“That’s where the politics of Republican versus Democrat sometimes just doesn’t play out at the local level,” St. Louis said. “There seem to be common values that people can coalesce around.”
Since 1999, Lyme has had four first selectmen. Republican Ralph Eno governed between 1991 and 2001, then returned to office between 2007 and 2017. None of his elections were contested. Republican William Koch won an election against a rival in 2001 and was re-elected unopposed in 2005.
Eno resigned in 2017 and was replaced by Democrat Steven Mattson, who defeated a Republican rival in an election that same year. Mattson was re-elected unopposed in 2019 and 2021, resigned before completing his last term, and was replaced by Republican David Lahm. Lahm was elected unopposed in 2023 but did not run this year.
The Republican Platform
Powell-St. Louis embraced her role in leading protests against a plan to cut a music teacher from the school district this year, a decision that was ultimately reversed. She said that if the controversy over the book resurfaced in the debate, she would discuss it again.
“We’re prepared to speak about it again,” Powell-St. Louis said. “At least my feelings in regards to it haven’t changed.”
St. Louis, who was born in Groton, is a retired chemical engineer and worked for 37 years for Pfizer. Powell-St. Louis, raised in Wethersfield, is a physician specializing in rehabilitation medicine and has worked in recent years at a biotech company. The couple, who have three children, said they moved from New Jersey to Lyme in 1998, for the bucolic nature and rural character of the town.
Protecting Lyme’s rural beauty is the first point on St. Louis’ platform. The town is in the process of updating its Plan of Conservation and Development. The second point, he told CT Examiner, is strong fiscal management to ensure cost effective and efficient government. His third priority is to retain local control over planning and zoning. He referred to the passage of a bill this session limiting town control over housing-related issues, which was vetoed by Gov. Ned Lamont but will likely be revived in modified form during a special session this fall.
“Everybody seemed to be pretty distressed that some of the autonomy that the state of Connecticut granted to towns many decades ago was now going to be clawed back,” St. Louis said.
The St. Louis couple was also critical of the Democrats’ strategy of supporting an unaffiliated candidate and a Democrat as selectwomen. According to the couple, this move is intended to avoid minority requirements in an attempt to retain all three seats on the Board of Selectmen.
“If they’re doing so much legwork for Christy Zelek, maybe materially supporting her campaign, certainly vocally supporting her campaign, at what point does it cross the line and she in effect becomes a D candidate?” St. Louis asked.
The Democratic Platform
Zelek’s candidacy for first selectwoman will be her first on the ballot. She has not previously served on town boards or commissions. At 50, Zelek was previously vice president of the Lyme Ambulance Association and works as secretary at Westbrook Middle School. She has lived in Lyme for 20 years.
“I’ve raised my family here. I’ve built a wonderful life here. I’m at a point now where I’m able to give back to the town in an even more meaningful way,” Zelek said at the Democratic caucus this week.
In her speech after the nomination, she presented herself as a team builder, a listener and a hard worker. She said she had met with boards, commissions, selectpeople, members of the board of finance, school superintendent Ian Neviaser, and State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, to prepare for the candidacy.
“I’m confident that I’ll hit the ground running,” Zelek said. “I’ve got the skills to do the job and to do the job well.”
Among her priorities, she highlighted keeping finances in check to keep taxes low, supporting schools and addressing capital needs, such as roads, bridges, and town equipment.
After her speech, she told the CT Examiner that she also considered St. Louis a friend.
“We’re old friends. We’ve been working together in Scouts for a long time,” Zelek said. “It seems like that is how elections are supposed to be. It’s good for the town to have a choice of who to put in office.”
Kiker praised Zelek as a young candidate who could hold the position for years.
“She brings fresh energy into this election, coupled with a sincere interest in serving our community,” Kiker said. “She shares our values and our concerns.”
—
This story has been updated to add further context to the library debate in 2023
