From the Trail...
Perspectives and Reflections
Celebrating 25 Years of "The Madison Arts Barn"
I had the pleasure of attending a ceremony on Wednesday, October 1st, when the Madison Chamber of Commerce celebrated The Barn's 25th year serving shoreline youth. "The Barn" as it is now branded (formerly known as The Madison Arts Barn) is an amazing asset to our greater shoreline community that has helped kids develop their interests, confidence, and friendships through creative and fun arts and STEM programming. Programs have included things like themed summer camps, youth community theater plays and musical theater productions on stage with professional-grade sound and lighting, middle school-aged theme dances, Odyssey of the Mind and VEX Robotics teams, Halloween-themed events, the very popular annual Ties & Tiaras Dance (formerly known as The Daddy Daughter Dance), youth-led Murder Mystery Theater events, youth band concerts and Battle of the Band events, and much, much more.
The Barn has been creating fond memories and launching professional arts careers for a quarter of a century! To celebrate, The Barn is hosting an Adults-Only (21+) party on Saturday night, October 4th. This will be a rockin' fundraiser to support The Barn and its amazing programming, with a DJ, dancing, cash bar, and silent auction with an impressive array of sponsored bid items. The theme is "Y2K to 2Day," to capture the year of the organization's inception (2000). Each ticket is only $25 and the proceeds help to fund Barn programming, including the organization's committment to inclusion. No child is ever turned away from a Barn production or program due to ability differences or the inability to pay. Last year The Barn awarded $20,000 in financial assistance to allow youth to participate when they may have been otherwise unable to afford participation fees. Please consider attending this fun event for a worthy organization doing amazing work with and for our youth. Even if you can't attend please consider making a donation to The Barn! You can link to the Tickets/Donation site by clicking here.
I have a strong personal connection to The Barn. For about 15 years, my wife, Robyn Klaskin, has volunteered or worked for the organization (as co-Executive Director or Executive Director for the past 10 years). As such, our three daughters spent most of their spare hours at The Barn, acting, singing, learning, making lifelong friendships and developing social skills, leadership skills, and confidence that have helped them flourish in life. One of our daughters went on to build a career in the Arts, and this is not unusual for kids who grow up participating in Barn programs.
As a longtime Board of Education member, I greatly appreciate how The Barn's programming supplements and complements what we aim to achieve in the school system. As but one concrete example, during COVID, The Barn held a Socially Distanced Study Hall program for students who had difficulty focusing on school work while sitting at home. The structure and socialization really helped many kids to maintain their social skills and academic rigor through a difficult period when other kids were falling behind in these areas.
The Barn provides an inclusive place where kids work together on creative tasks, and where they grow together as they produce and participate in impressive shows and other work-products. They develop confidence and public speaking skills from being onstage. They acquire skills that help them develop lifelong interests or even careers (such as performance, stage crew, lighting/sound, etc). While The Barn certainly attracts its share of sports-oriented youth, it also provides a home for the kids who are not so sports-oriented. It allows kids with varied interests, capabilities, and skill sets to mix and mingle in a supervised, friendly, and supportive environment that often cultivates unlikely friendships. And most of all, it produces wide, wholehearted smiles. These wholesome experiences extend social emotional growth beyond the confines of the school day, which in turn enhances the social emotional learning progress in the school district.
The Barn truly is a special place and an amazing community asset. I am honored to have contributed time and support to The Barn over the past 15 years and I hope to see you on Saturday night, October 4th!
Three Days. Three Events.
Three Sets of Values I Hold Dear.
Values Represented: Community, Common History, Deep Appreciation for the Important Work of First Responders and Our Defenders of Freedom
On September 11, 2025, I attended the Madison 9/11 Ceremony on the Green. It was a moving event with poignant prayers and thoughts shared by Reverend Todd Vetter of the First Congregational Church of Madison. The reverie of the flag corps comprised of the town's first responders, the plaintive and soulful rendition of Taps, the feeling of society among those present, all worked to place me back at September 12, 2001.
I recall vivdly how the entire coutry felt in the unfolding aftermath of that tragic day. We were in mourning. We realized that, somehow, things would never be the same. There was a budding optimism that "we can do this, together." Politics were suspended. Grievances were dropped. Friendships grew and were solidified through adversity. Our country seemed poised to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the tragedy.
Attending that event touched me deeply, the way a spiritual experience does. I am an American. I value community and society with my fellow citizens, from across the spectrum of thought. Being together diminshes our differences and makes space for respect and understanding. We Citizens, from 9/11 onward, share a common history. A renewed opportunity to live from strength to stength as a people. Together, we are better as a whole than the differences that divide us. Moreover, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to those who put differences aside and rushed into burning buildings to save us, or who take the ultimate oath to defend our freedoms near and far, even as doing so threatens their own fragile lives.
Values Represented: Compassion, Respect for Others, Alliance with the Marginalized
On Saturday, September 13, 2025, I spent a few hours mingling with folks at Madison's Pride Fest. What an amazing event! It was gratifying to witness the growth of this event. People came from around the shoreline and throughout Connecticut. The event overfilled the Green with vendors, attendees, and performers. It was especially heartwarming to see how many young families took the time to bring their children to an event that embodied respect and alliance with communities that are sometimes marginalized in society, celebrating together with a zest for life. At the Youth & Family Services booth, I was able to complete my own fill-in button. The prompt was "Proud To Be..." I grabbed a Sharpie and filled in, "...an Ally." Then I proudly sported my new button, which is tucked away to wear at future events.
It was fun and also significant to spend an afternoon helping a marginalized group of fellow citizens to realize that they (and their rights) are supported by more people than they may realize. Compassion and respect cost nothing, yet can mean so much.
Values Represented: Liberty, Justice, Public Education, and Responsible Citizenship
On Wednesday, September 17, 2025, I attended a Shoreline League of Women Voters (SLWV) event at the Guilford Free Library. Timed to National Constitution and Citizenship Day (marking the anniversary of the adoption of the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787), the SLWV program was entitled, "A Reading of the U.S. Constitution: Read by Connecicut Shoreline Students."
What an amazing idea, right?! Students from our shoreline high schools took turns reading sections of the Constitution, from the Preamble through the last Amendment. As a Board of Education Chair, it did my heart good to witness students who took time out of their busy schedules to celebrate their citizenship in this clever way.
As a lawyer and in my training as a History major in college, the Constitution hits me in different ways. But even wearing both hats, I was reminded of the difficult compromises the Founders had to strike to create this American ideal of Representative Democracy through a Federal Republic. What an amazing achievement. And the experiment continues, entrusted to each of us.
One sincere takeaway for me was that we each have a duty, as mere stewards of the liberty and freedom we hold dear, in our time, to secure the blessing of liberty to posterity, as the Preamble demands. Our society and cultural heritage were born out of healthy debate. Perhaps the best way to preserve our society and culture in the face of modern challenges is to adopt the example of our Founders by returning to respectful debate and compromise for the sake of the common good.
Differences among people are inevitable. The hallmark of a successful society is in how we overcome
those differences to meet the challenges of every era. We must each commit to being the best version of a citizen we can be. We must enter debate freely, with respect for the opinions of others, and with a heart set on achieving consensus and compromise. Together, we can even conquer and survive the challenge of social media in our age, if we recommit ourselves to these principles. That is how I have acted in my 22+ years in elected and appointed positions of public trust.
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In the final analysis, running for public office should not be an exercise solely in raising money or running up votes. It should be a time of deep reflection and introspection, devoted to visualization of what kind of leader one wants to be. The values of a candidate guide their actions once in office. I will be asking for votes on the trail, to be sure. But in return, I pledge to apply principled judgment rooted in strong values that I have demonstrated through decades of service in public office. That is how I will uphold Justice from the probate bench for my fellow citizens of Guilford and Madison.
