The Windsor Journal

Mayor Donald Trinks has decided. After serving ten years as the official head of Windsor's municipal government, and more than a quarter of a century in a long list of town leadership positions, Trinks has now set his sights on state office and plans to run for the District 5 seat that was recently created. He announced this week that he will ask the Windsor Democratic Town Committee to support his candidacy.

While it may come as a surprise for many in town who see in Trinks a veritable ambassador of every thing Windsor, for many of his friends the only surprise was that it took so long for him to consider a move to the Capitol.

“It was time,” said Windsor Chamber of Commerce Jane Garibay. “Don Trinks would be a great representative for Windsor and Hartford. He has been a great Mayor during difficult times. During his time as Mayor budget increases have been kept down but services have been maintained. That is something we need at the State level! A no-nonsense, honest politician looking out for the good of the people.”

So, why had he not considered the move until now? the Windsor Journal asked the mayor during an interview at Bart's, the Windsor historical eatery he co-owns and manages.

“I always thought I have the greatest gig in the world,” he responded with a smile. “I love the fact that I spend a hundred percent of my time now in Windsor, and up at the Capitol it is definitely going to be filtered with another 168 towns and their interests. But what comes out of there will always affect Windsor. We now have a majority district in Windsor, and the chance to have a representative from Windsor. I think this is just a different level of serving Windsor.”

More than serving his hometown, however, Trinks believes that something he has can really help the whole state: his solid experience in running a small business.

“We really really, really need to make Connecticut more business friendly,” he noted. “We have to do things about the cost of doing business in the state. Everybody up there will tell you that they want small business, they need to encourage small business, that small business is the backbone of the economy. Well, small businesses are getting squeezed out by costs and we need to do something about it.”

And there is something he is missing that can be equally valuable, Trinks stressed.

“Unlike others, I don't have entrenched relationships and connections, and I think that is exactly what is needed – new faces and new blood, maybe new ideas, and maybe different ways of doing things because the system we have isn't working right now.”

His understanding of the problems small businesses face makes him also a good candidate to represent the section of Hartford that is included in the new district, Trinks believes.

“Mom-and-pop businesses is what this area is known for, and I think that we must do everything we can to keep them active and vital, and that will create jobs,” he noted. “ If we want jobs, we need businesses down there. If we need businesses down there, we have to give people a financial incentive in some way or another to be able to afford to set up shop in Hartford. That area is the gateway to Hartford and it could be a showplace. It was in the past, and it should be again, and I hope to help do that.”

And there is something else that he can offer Hartford, he noted.

“I enjoy the friendship of all the current representatives of the area, and have relations with all of them,” he pointed out. “Which means that if I have a relationship with somebody who is partially in Bloomfield, someone who is partially in East Windsor, Windsor, Windsor Locks, Suffield - that is a big, powerful area which is going to get attention at the capital . And, in turn, my area in Hartford will get the attention of that power base, so instead of just one or two or three representatives you are going to have upwards of six- seven that are going to have a very strong invested interest in the success there.”

First things first, of course, and over the course of the next month Trinks must win the support of the Windsor Democratic Town Committee for his candidacy. According to WDTC rules, the committee will nominate delegates who will in turn pick the endorsed candidate of the party. Ten of the delegates will be from Windsor, while another six will be from Hartford – an advantage for Windsor, if the town vote is not split - which may very well be., since DTC chairman Leo Canty and DTC member Jay Lewis have also shown interest for the seat.

Trinks though is optimistic that his fellow DTC members will weigh his years of service to the town, and also the fact that, at some point, town must start sending to the legislature people like him, he said.

“If I am elected, it really will show that the Capitol and state government really are about people and it's not just the select elite few that can get elected and get up there,” he said. “I am just a common guy who runs a business and raises a family. And the greatest compliment I ever had was when I was doing a talk on the budget at Clover Street school, at the end a parent approached me and introduced himself and said, 'You know, you are just an average guy.' And it was the best compliment I could ever get - because that is what government should be. You know, that is what I did here in Windsor. And I hope that I can do the same in the Capitol.”

I am hoping as I have used my business as a venue for people to talk about their town issues, my exposure to citizens here I can use that now at the state level, I have state issues that come in and tell me I voted right or wrong or otherwise, I have got a good management staff in place here that will afford me the time to spend there and the time I may need to spend out on the road.

The Town Planning and Zoning Commission has scheduled a public workshop on preservation related topics for updating the 2004 Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) for Wednesday, February 29th, at 7:00pm in the Windsor Town Hall Ludlow Room.

The Commission is hoping to hear from a diverse group of residents and business owners about the important preservation issues for Windsor to consider over the next ten to twenty years.  The preservation topics discussed at this workshop will include protecting natural resources, encouraging historic preservation efforts, enhancing community character, and more.

The workshop will not be a typical town meeting.  Attendees will participate in interactive planning exercises designed to guide discussion and spark creative thought towards the goal of developing strategies to guide future historic preservation and natural conservation throughout town.

The results of the workshop will be incorporated into a development strategy booklet that will be made available online and at the Windsor public libraries.  This booklet will form the basis for discussion of preservation topics by the Commission as it updates two chapters of the POCD dealing with historic preservation and natural conservation.

The Town of Windsor is required by law to update its Plan of Conservation and Development every ten years.  Since the current plan was adopted in 2004, the Town Planning and Zoning Commission has chosen not to wait until 2014 to update the plan and has taken steps to update critical chapters of the POCD as the need arises.  The Commission has already updated plan chapters dealing with agricultural and open space preservation and the development of the Day Hill Corporate Area, which have yielded dramatic results.  In addition to the preservation and conservation chapters, the Commission is concurrently working on updating three chapters dealing with residential and economic development.  This workshop will continue the process of keeping the plan as current and effective as possible.

Questions about this workshop or future workshops to be held on other topics can be directed to the Windsor Planning Department at (860) 285-1980.

You would think that Valentine's Day and and politics don't mix, but one of the most beloved traditions in Windsor has its roots in an election year “ploy.” As the story is told by those in the know, in 1962 town clerk George Tudan was looking for a way to “get his name out.” The position, at the time was elected, and Tudan had to campaign hard every two years to keep his job. What could he do to attract some attention? Give out a free license for the first couple that would marry on Valentine's Day, he decided, and then call the media to report on the event. It was pure genius and started a tradition that half a century later is still going strong.

“He was larger than life,” remembered this week Wolcott teacher Betsey Lepak, Tudan's daughter. “He was creative. As a kid, I remember when he needed jobs done around his home, he would enlist the neighborhood kids to do the work for him and then he gave them fireworks as a reward. Those kids would do anything for him.”

Giving out a license was hardly TV material, so Tudan convinced the town's baker to donate a cake, the jewelery store to offer a piece of jewelery, a merchandising company to prepare some gift packs – all of them his buddies, anyway. And he made sure there would be at least a couple to marry.

“He knew that people would come to marry on Valentine day, and what he did was contact them in advance,” Lepak recalled with a smile. “It was 'staged'.”

Staged or not, the event caught on quickly. Since then, every February 14, 'Mr. Valentine,' as Tudan came to be known around Connecticut, would don his maroon jacket on and offer his blessings and a free license to one lucky couple.

Did it work?

“There was always someone from the newspaper, and one of the TV channels would always come,” Lepac said. “We were never allowed to watch TV at the dinner table as kids. Valentines' Day? That rickety TV stand would be wheeled into the dinning room, the big old portable TV would be placed on that stand, and we would watch daddy on TV.”

And it worked in another way too: Tudan was elected as town clerk for more than 30 years, a remarkable stretch than ended only when he decided to retire – in Saybrook, so that his retirement was a true retirement, his daughter says.

Over the years hundreds of couples tied the knot on Valentine's Day under the auspices of Windsor's town clerks – at some point free licenses were extended to all couples marrying during the day, and later on during the period around the holiday.

Among them, a young Bill Lewis, who is now the town's Fire Chief.

Pat Kuszik, who now works at the town clerk's office and coordinates this year's celebration was also a Valentine's Day bride. She and her husband Michael are always reminded by their friends that they owe the town the $6 dollars they didn't pay to get married. “Now the fee is $30 dollars,” Kuszik observed this week with a smile.

Tudan loved recounting Valentine Day stories to his family and friends. Lepak remembers especially the time he came home, excited because the groom in that year's wedding was serving overseas.

The only time he felt a little different, Betsey Lepak noted, was when Peter Lepak approached Tudan to ask for his permission to marry his daughter.

“I was his daughter, and he wasn't ready to let me go,” Lepak said. “That's how he was. When he had his first grandchild, he did not want to be called grandfather. He was called 'uncle George.'”

Still, love always wins, and Tudan once more “staged” the wedding. When? Valentine's Day, of course, said his daughter.

“I said to him 'I've watched this my whole life. I want to be the Valentine couple,” she says.

Twenty years later, on the 35^th anniversary since the day he started Windsors newest tradition, town clerk Kathy Quin asked now retired Tudan to come once more at the town hall, to be part of that celebration of the Valentine couples.

But there would be some brides that needed to be given away, he was told. Would he do that honor? Tudan accepted.

“And then they called me and they arranged for us to be one of the couples that would reiterate our vows – but they told us not to tell dad,” Lepak said. “So we arrived and I had my children very young, and he saw us and he did a motion 'Get out of the way,' so I looked at him and I kept smiling and I had my dress on and they gave me a flower, and he whispered that he had to give a bride away. And I said 'Dad – I am the bride.'”

“He was so touched, he just broke in tears and he beamed, he was excited and he grabbed me and we walked down together,” Lepak remembers.

It may have started as a “ploy” but by then even for everyone in town, George Tudan included, Valentine's Day weddings were a real Windsor tradition.

Sometimes a t-shirt is just a t-shirt. Sometimes it tells a whole story. The T-shirts Detective Russel Wininger of the Windsor Police Department has made for his friend Dan Nolan, are definitely the later.

As Wininger tells it, Dan Nolan who is from Windsor and is the Deputy Chief of the Hartford Fire Dept is also in the National Guard. He is currently stationed in Afghanistan with his unit, the 246^th Firefighting Detachment, aka “Honey Badgers.” Last year, one of Dan's good friends, Matt Dirrane, a lieutenant in the Hartford Fire Dept. was killed tragically in a car accident on vacation in Costa Rica.

“Mat was very big in the community, and that whole thing of Paying it Forward,” Wininger said this week. “And so Dan has kind-of adopted that during his stay in Afghanistan and he is doing a lot of things for the native people there.”

During his stay Nolan asked also his friends stateside is there was anybody with any connection to make some t-shirts for his troop in Afghanistan with their unit information and their moto.

“I met Dan in 1992, when I was a young police officer in Coventry, at the St. Patric Parade in Hartford, and since them I met him once or twice every year,” Wininger said. “So when he asked, I had some connections, and he started giving me some artwork, he gave me a couple of ideas, and we had the t-shirts made up.”

The t-shirts initially were just for Nolan's friends in Afghanistan. But Wininger had an idea. In order to print t-shirts, you have to a print a large quantity to make it worthwhile. Why not sell the rest, he reasoned, and channel all the proceeds to Nolan's “Pay it Forward” campaign?

The t-shirts are now ready and the first have already been shipped to Nolan and his friends who are now wearing them proudly. Of the remaining quantity, more than 100 have already been sold, and the rest are now being delivered to the Fire Departments in Hartford,where Nolan's friends are expecting them eagerly.

They cost just $20 each, and anyone interested in buying one of these small masterpieces can contact for more information Det. Russel Wininger at the Windsor Police Department, or Ann Walsh of Win-TV's “Send Hometown Windsor to the Troops” program.

Susan Bysiewicz addressed members of the Windsor Democratic Town Committee, Thursday, asking for their support for her senatorial run. If elected, she will hold Wall Street accountable, she promised, help the middle class whose homes are under water, restructure the tax code, ban gifts of all kind, close the door to lobbyists, and push for the appointment of a citizens’ commission to draw legislative districts. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Jaggon