Independent Party of Newtown

Po and her family moved from Norwalk, Connecticut to Newtown in 1999. Po met her husband, Tom, in middle school and they have been married for 19 years. Tom and Po have four children in the Newtown school system. One at Reed Intermediate School, one at Newtown Middle School and two at the Newtown High School.

Po was born in Pusan, South Korea. She moved to Vermont with her mother and her four brothers at age nine. Po grew up in Barre, Vermont and graduated from Spaulding High School. She attended the University of Vermont in Burlington to study Physical Therapy. Po moved to Norwalk after graduating from UVM to begin her career as a Physical Therapist at Norwalk Hospital. To specialize in rehabilitation, Po began working at the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, New York. She managed one of the five rehabilitation units and specialized in neurological and orthopedic rehabilitation. She continued to work per diem at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital and at Norwalk Hospital after having children however when she moved to Newtown, she decided to devote 100% of her time to her children.

Po’s top priority has been raising her four children for the last 17 years. She has been a member of the PTAs at Reed Intermediate, Newtown Middle School and Newtown High School. Po also enjoys watching her children’s soccer games and spends many hours on the soccer fields throughout Connecticut and sometimes out of state. When not at town board meetings or IPN meetings, Po devotes many driving hours for soccer, basketball, track, student council and other extracurricular activities. Po also likes traveling, gardening, painting, spending time with friends at the neighborhood dinner club and trying new recipes.

PO'S STORY OF IPN:

In 2006, Po Murray and Gary Davis co-founded WECAN (We Care About Newtown), a public advocacy coalition, to engage the public on the critical issues facing Newtown by providing important information to its members. Po and Gary witnessed the lack of integrated long-term planning when the town was having difficulty properly addressing the high school overcrowding (despite the first high school addition being completed less than 10 years earlier for $28 million) while a new town hall on Fairfield Hills was to be constructed. It was WECAN’s belief that Band-Aid approaches and the lack of an integrated approach to addressing capital projects for Newtown resulted in increased taxes for all Newtown residents. WECAN placed heavy emphasis on advocating for a strategic integrated long-term plan for Newtown. The town officials were unresponsive and took no action.

When Po and Gary determined that advocacy alone did not bring about the change required to make town government more transparent and more accountable to its citizens, a decision was made to form the Independent Party of Newtown.

Po and Gary learned quickly that the Democratic and the Republican Town Committees worked collaboratively together and provided little to no choice of candidates for the electorate. It was difficult for a person with a new voice to be nominated to run for a town board position through the Democratic and the Republican Town Committees. Po and Gary believed it was critical to stimulate the competition between the existing political parties to provide the best choices of candidates for the voters of Newtown.

Eleven other concerned Democrats, Republicans, and Unaffiliateds citizens joined Po and Gary to petition as the IPN candidates for various town boards in 2007.

Po and Gary were elected to the Legislative Council in District Two, Bruce Walczak to the Police Commission and David Nanavaty to the Board of Education. Several IPN candidates lost their bid for the Legislative Council seats with less than 20 votes.

Po lost her bid for re-election in 2009-- by 21 votes. She was leading at the polls but she lost when absentee ballots were counted.

2007-2009 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL INITIATIVES:

Po was a registered Democrat elected to serve on the Legislative Council as an Independent Party of Newtown candidate for District Two. Po was a member of the Legislative Council Finance Subcommittee and also the Legislative Council Education Subcommittee.

As a Legislative Council Member, Po pursued IPN’s principles of ACT (Accountability, Checks and Balances, and Transparency in government). Po attempted to improve and streamline the budget process and she encouraged continuous improvement in the capital improvement process to better plan and prioritize the town and school capital improvement projects.

Po continually pressured the Legislative Council to provide more oversight of the Fairfield Hills redevelopment plans. Po has consistently asked for more financial accountability and encouraged the town/schools to improve communication to make information readily available to the residents.

Po believed the Legislative Council had abdicated most of its responsibilities to the Board of Finance and has become a rubber-stamping group. Po consistently urged the Legislative Council, which is the ultimate fiscal authority of the town, to become more active in managing the town finances, including FFH.

Po has been passionate about pursuing an integrated strategic long-term planning process, as she believes it is critical to determine a vision and a fiscally responsible spending plan for Newtown. Po believes that services will be improved and taxes will be stabilized with better long-term planning.

With Po and Gary’s constant encouragement, the Legislative Council finally voted to support a long-term planning process to begin. Unfortunately, to date, there has been no follow-through or action to pursue an integrated strategic long-term plan.

ACT FOR A BETTER NEWTOWN:

The IPN has created a more diverse government and there is more accountability and transparency - because of IPN! However, there is still a significant amount of work to be done. As a minor party, we have made our voices strong and have been instrumental in originating many of the changes that have taken place over the last four years.

The IPN is a group of Democrats, Republicans, Independents and Unaffiliateds who have come together to focus on local issues to create a better Newtown. I believe we are the type of group that many in this country are seeking to energize. We have been working tirelessly for the last four years to earn more seats in town government to better represent the interests of like-minded Newtowners. I am hoping that the voters will support us on Election Day.