Over the past week or so, much of the attention has been focus on national news as President Obama was sworn in and various people from Woodbridge were in Washington for the celebrations. Yet there has been a lot going on here in Woodbridge as well.

Last Thursday the town Democrats and Republicans gathered to select their slates for municipal elections. The Democratic Caucus was well attended, including members of the local press. The Amity Observer produced this list of candidates.

The whole process of selecting the candidates, at least for the Democrats was very quick. A slate was presented by the nominating committee which was approved by everyone. It probably took ten minutes to go through the formalities.

Yet there was much more to the meeting than just approving the slate. First Selectman Ed Sheehy spoke briefly, accepting the nomination, and outlined some of the recent accomplishments as well as future goals. He mentioned the completion of the new firehouse and the plans for the renovation of the old firehouse and a bridge.

He mentioned that Woodbridge was the first community where 25% of the people have committed to clean energy. He spoke about the economic development commission, and plans for the Massaro Farm and a $50 thousand dollar grant for that project. He noted that the town has a AA1 rating from Moodys which is the highest a town the size of Woodbridge can achieve.

He spoke about a five-year maintenance program, revisions to the town ethics rules and improved communications between the Board of Selectman, the Board of Education and the Board of Finance. He noted that people move to Woodbridge because of the quality of education in our town. He ended off focusing on his experience and the civility that he has brought to the office.

This brings me to the Board of Education meeting that took place last night. I ended up recording it for the Government Access channel, so I didn’t get a chance to write much about the meeting. Dr. Stella spoke about the wonderful experience everyone had as the school welcomed visitors from China. As a follow-up, he proposed sending two teachers to China to help set up technology to facilitate communication between students in Woodbridge and students at the schools in China.

In terms of the increased communications between the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance, this evening there was a joint meeting of the two boards to hear Operating Budget Presentations. This is the first of four presentations. Next week, there will be presentations on Tuesday and Thursday, and then the following presentation will be the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, my schedule was a bit too packed to get to this evenings presentation, however, I hope to get to some of the upcoming presentations.

Beyond Woodbridge, Bethany is also preparing for municipal elections and there was a Board of Selectmen meeting last Tuesday in Seymour, which may have addressed some of the issues I’ve been talking about here concerning a guardrail for Haddad Road.

So, while there has been plenty of events taking place on the national stage, there is plenty going on locally, perhaps more than the local newspapers can fully cover. So, I’d ask my readers to consider attending meetings in your towns and posting them online.