Politics & Government

Q&A: Council Candidate Edward Monahan

Democrat is Former CT Sea Grant Director

Note: In the days leading up to Election Day, the Ledyard Patch will run short profiles of all town candidates for council and board of education, along with their responses to three questions that we asked. Election Day is Nov. 8.

Name:   Edward C. Monahan        

Age:  75

Find out what's happening in Ledyardwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Education:  B.S. Engin. Phys.,Cornell ; M.A.(Physics), U. Texas, Austin; Ph.D. (Oceano.), MIT; D.Sc.(published works), National U. of Ireland.

Work Experience:  40 years of college teaching and research, in the U.S. and abroad.  1986-2006 as Professor of Marine Sciences, and Director of the CT Sea Grant College Program, UConn. Still active in research, etc., as Emeritus Professor.

Find out what's happening in Ledyardwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Civic/Political Experience:  Have served on the Board of Directors of the Southeastern Connecticut Water Authority since 2003.  (Have been Vice Chairman since 2007.)

Family:  Wife Elizabeth (Betty) – we have been married 51 years, and lived in Gales Ferry for almost 20 years, before moving to the east side of Ledyard (Long Pond) in 2006, where we currently reside.  Three daughters; Nancy (Groton), Carol (Seattle), Eilis (Ledyard HS grad, now in Ithaca, where she is a doctoral candidate in Archaeology at Cornell).

1. Why are you running for this office?     

I am confident that I can contribute to the activities of the Town Council. I am sensitive to the differing needs of our village and our rural residents.  I have come to understand the various Ledyard, as well as regional, water issues, and believe that I have gained insights that will be useful to the Council into what it takes to run an economical and customer-friendly water system.  

Ledyard, like most communities in these hard economic times, faces a number of tough decisions when it comes to the allocation of resources.  In such times members of the town council need to keep lines of civil dialogue open, and must strive to see that they maintain the respect of the constituents they serve.   

I believe I have learned how to be effective in such a setting, having annually for 20 years as the CT Sea Grant Director been responsible for allocating ~ $1 million to a diverse, state-wide, constituency that each year presented my office with well-argued requests for at least twice that amount.  I have for the past several years regularly attended the meetings of the Ledyard Town Council and have an appreciation of the work of this dedicated group of men and women, I would be honored to join them as in the coming years they address the persistent challenges that face Ledyard.

2. What do you believe is the greatest challenge Ledyard faces today, and what would you do to meet this challenge?   

Ledyard needs to preserve and improve the educational services it provides for its children, while maintaining, and strategically improving, the town’s basic infrastructure, in the face of static or diminished municipal funding. The town needs to continue actively exploring regional collaborations that will result in savings for all the participating communities, while taking care to maintain Ledyard’s independence and identity.

3. How would you rate the performance of the current council overall, and what, if anything, would you do differently?   

Overall, I am very impressed with the effort put forth by the current members of the Town Council.  I am sure that the current members of the Council want to focus on their legislative, and fiscal, roles, as per our Town Charter, but in the absence of forward motion by some of the various commissions and other elements of town government, the council members often find themselves trying to carry out, in addition to their statutory duties, the duties of other town bodies.  

One specific example: I would certainly work to see that the Town Council, which has doubled as the Ledyard Water Pollution Control Authority for well over a year now, move expeditiously to appoint a slate of interested and capable citizens to a newly constituted Ledyard WPCA, and thus free up the Town Council to focus on the many pressing legislative and fiscal issues that face our town.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here