Running for the position of: City Council
Name: Sharon Waagner
Age: 79
Address: 178 Circle Drive, Torrington
Education: BS in Education and MLS (Library Science)
Occupation: Retired teacher/librarian and current Communications Director for Torrington Downtown Partners
Family: Husband, Louis and two grown children, Greg and Susan
Community involvement: Corporator for the Torrington Library; Secretary on the NWCT EDC Executive Board; Volunteer Librarian for Five Points Center for the Visual Arts, member of the Community Emergency Response Team where I have been working on food and mask distribution and assisting at vaccine clinics.
City positions held: City Council with positions on the budget committee, Small Cities committee, new school subcommittee, and steering committee representative from City Council for Municipal Housing Grant - working with the COG. Previous positions include serving on Planning & Zoning and on Arts Culture Torrington.
Why I am running for office: As an elected official, I have an obligation to the taxpayers and residents of our community to make decisions that will affect them on many levels including disposition of funds, voting on measures or expenditures that affect our community, monitoring services provided to the city including use of city facilities and waste disposal, and infrastructure improvements. Economic development is important and needs to include promotion of businesses already existing in our city as well as encouraging growth. Improvements such as renovation of Main Street, the new Franklin Plaza, have had a positive impact. Inviting new business is also crucial. But infrastructure such as road and sidewalks are just as important. We need to find pathways to reducing the mill rate while continuing to make our city a wonderful place to live, work and play. As a member of the Arts Culture Torrington commission, I was happy to be part of bringing more attention to the arts and Five Points Gallery and all of its expansion. We have more visitors but we also have more artists moving into the community and all of that adds to the tax base. We have jobs available and we are working with the NWCT EDC on providing access to a central job listing. I also feel it is important to listen to constituents – to find out their concerns but also finding out the places and events that make them happy. I believe in providing a good education for our children and know that our new middle/high school facility will provide many opportunities for those children to thrive and grow.