Lisa Pellegrini feels “honored” and “flattered” at being re-elected as First Selectman in Somers.
Pellegrini defeated unaffiliated candidates Bob Pettee and Patrice Carson on Tuesday.
“I’m really excited,” Pellegrini said. “I’m so honored and so flattered and I look forward to serving for another two years.”
She was happy that the Board of Selectman stayed intact with Kathy Devlin and Bud Knorr defeating unaffiliated candidate Doug Stebbins.
“It works extremely well together and we have a lot of different ideas and everything and there’s a lot of synergy,” Pellegrini said. “You don’t really see that a lot. It’s good to have the same board. We’re focused on making sure that we do the best for Somers. There’s no political agendas and there’s no personal agendas. It’s just, ‘What are we going to do for the people in the community? What’s good for everybody?’”
She continued, “We don’t focus on it being a party thing or a political thing, it’s, ‘What is the goal and how do we get there?’”
Pellegrini’s win turned out to be an easy one, by 719 votes over Pettee and 1,120 over Carson. No matter what happened, she had made her peace.
“You never know and politics changes from day to day,” she said when asked if she was surprised at the large margin. “I’m always in a win-win situation. I’m glad I have the opportunity for the next two years. I’m fine, I’m in a good position, I can’t lose.”
Pellegrini sees this as an opportunity to continue what she’s started, and to also start some new projects.
“There are a lot of projects that I want to end up doing – specifically the solar and alternative energy,” she said. “It’s going so well. I have some exciting new developments are on the horizon so I’m just really excited. I have a great staff, we have wonderful board and commission members so I look forward to working on some projects with everybody.”
While Pellegrini may have defeated the other candidates, they can still be involved if they would like.
“That’s the whole thing, we never not involve people,” she said. “We’ll maintain what we’ve always done. We have a very open form of government – we’re very accessible. We’ll keep doing that because apparently it works; the people are happy.”
While based on the results, the majority of people are happy, Pellegrini knows that not everybody is happy. She understands that she cannot please everybody and stands by what she has done.
“When you really look at my track record, I put 110 percent into it,” she said. “Do I regret doing anything? No. Because I never put my personal interests first. Looking back, am I proud of everything I did? Absolutely. You have to do what’s best for everybody. I’m proud of what we’ve done, I’m proud of what my staff has done, and it’s good to continue on. Sometimes people get very, very angry, but in the end, the right decisions will prevail. So far I think we’ve made the right decisions.”
One of Pellegrini’s decisions was to forget about campaigning and focusing on the election in light of the freak October snowstorm.
“That was gone the day of the storm,” she said. “You have it in the back of your mind and what’s more important. You put the problem with getting everybody powered first.”
