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Dear Editor:

November 7th is Election Day, and I encourage my fellow West Hartford voters to join me in supporting Deb Polun for Town Council. I have known Deb both personally and professionally for many years and can say without equivocation that she is passionate leader who is uniquely committed to public service.

For four years, Deb served as the Executive Director of the Connecticut Association for Community Action – a position in which she advocated for the neediest residents of our state. She has also spent more than seven years at the Community Health Association of Connecticut, where she currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer; and she spent more than a dozen years working for the Connecticut General Assembly. In each of these positions, Deb has shown a command of public policy that benefited the people she served.

In 2017, Deb was elected to serve on our Board of Education here in West Hartford; and for five years, she played a leading role in helping our schools be recognized as among the best public schools in our state. Deb’s respectful style of consensus building and collaboration ultimately lead to her being elected chair of the school board where she had the incredibly difficult task of overseeing the board during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the father of five children in the public schools during the pandemic, I am very thankful for Deb’s leadership.

Deb furthered her public service in 2022 when she was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Town Council. In her time on the Council, Deb has already proven to be a champion of taxpayers and families as she has supported fiscally responsible budgets that maintain the high quality of services we have come to expect here in West Hartford. Families and businesses want to move to West Hartford because we are consistently ranked among the best towns in the country – and great leaders like Deb help make that possible.

On Election Day, please join me in voting for Deb Polun – and the rest of Mayor Cantor’s team – for Town Council. We need to keep moving West Hartford forward.

Jason Jakubowski
West Hartford