The Auditors of Public Accounts have reviewed the Offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Among their finding is that “[a]s of July 3, 2019, there were 270 gubernatorial-appointed vacancies on various boards, commissions, councils and other appointed bodies.”

The report points out that this is 17% of the governor’s appointments. That many vacancies can hinder the operation of boards and commissions. Here’s a suggestion. Many public-spirited citizens will be leaving local public office in the aftermath of Tuesday’s local elections. Some chose not to run again, others were defeated. They make for a pool of people with all a wide range of interests, backgrounds and qualifications. Many of them now have some extra time to devote to other pursuits.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney and Majority Leader Bob Duff spent part of Election Day in Sprague. The Democratic leaders are trying to bolster the prospects of state Senator Cathy Osten, who serves as the financially strapped town’s first selectman. Under Osten’s leadership, Sprague is one of four municipalities operating under state monitoring due to poor budget decisions.

Osten is thought to be in a tight race for re-election.

Please join Denise D’Ascenzo, Dennis House and me for election coverage beginning at 8 p.m. on WFSB.com, your WFSB app, and Facebook Live, with over-the-air news as events require. There’ll be a full update on the 11 p.m. news.

Dear Ructions,

This requires a quick response. I am running for office on Tuesday for the first time. The campaign has been more unpleasant than I expected when I was asked to run last summer. Veterans on our side fired back at the other team and it has escalated in the last few weeks. I’ve made my husband and children stop reading Facebook because they were spending hours plotting responses to nasty locals. 

The other night we had a team-building dinner with our candidates and our families. It was a lovely evening until I suggested that on election night the losing team, which we could be, should congratulate the winners in person. The opposition to the idea was loud and persistent—the worst hoots coming from my husband and one of our teenage children. 

We agreed to ask you and take your advice.

Sign me,

Ready to extend a hand

Dear Hand,

Every community has its own political culture. Yours sounds like it may be deteriorating under the malign influence of social media. I applaud your instincts on healing wounds. Congratulations on recognizing opinionated teenagers may not be reliable sources of advice beyond coping with evolving technology. The winners—no doubt some from each ticket—are going to need to work together. Voters do not like permanent strife in town government. 

Ask a friend to contact the leader of the other party to tell them where you’ll be on Tuesday night and ask for their venue. If your side loses, the candidates and your campaign manager should go to them. Do not take family members on this mission. Spread out and congratulation the winners. Accept a token of hospitality and leave together. Don’t linger. Time and alcohol may erode some filters. Smiles only. Don’t give them the satisfaction of a sad picture. In defeat, polite defiance. 

If you win, welcome the losers to your celebration. Applaud their gracious gesture. Tell your husband and children and the steaming candidate families there is no gloating allowed. 

Everyone lives in the same town. They are going to run into each other outside of political tussles. No one should regret adding a few grace notes to politics in this coarse age. 

You’re right to hope other towns will follow gracious suggestion. You sound like a leader in advanced formation.  

This seems the moment to recommend a podcast. How to Fail With Elizabeth Day “is a podcast that celebrates the things that haven’t gone write” through entertaining interviews with each episode’s guest. Winners will also profit from listening to it. How to Fail originates from Britain but Day is so talented it matters not at all that the listener may be unfamiliar with the guest.

If you are impaled on the horns of a dilemma and want to risk receiving advice, send a message to kfr@dailyructions.com. Identities will be protected. Messages may be edited.

Senate Democratic staffers are off to Sprague to help save embattled First Selectman and state Senator Cathy Osten. Under Osten’s leadership, the southeastern Connecticut community has become one of just three towns to fall under the authority of the Municipal Accountability Review Board.

Local elections provide a more direct form of municipal accountability, which is why Democratic staffers will be parachuting into Sprague.

With state Senator Marilyn Moore’s legal challenge of Bridgeport’s September Democratic mayoral primary result failing on Thursday, other Democrats have deemed it safe to endorse incumbent Joseph Ganim’s re-election. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy joined U.S. Representative Jim Himes in providing a late campaign boost to Ganim. The trio, according to a Ganim tweet, hail the mayor”as a tireless voice in his efforts and leadership on behalf of the Park City.”

Moore, who nearly tipped over Ganim in the September contest, will continue through Tuesday as a long shot write-in candidate.

The endorsement of Ganim, who was convicted of corruption during his first stint as mayor and served a lengthy prison sentence, may dent Blumenthal’s hankering for a reputation for rectitude as proceedings related to the impeachment of Donald Trump continue. Himes is at the center of the House investigation as a high-ranking member of the intelligence committee. Himes’ embrace of Ganim may hand some grist to Trump’s platoon of blind loyalists as the daily combat over the one-time steak salesman’s sellout of American interests continues.

Toni Harp will end her campaign for a fourth term as mayor of New Haven with a march on City Hall. The Saturday event begins at the Elks Club.

Harp suffered a stinging defeat in September when New Haven Democratic primary voters chose Justin Elicker for their party’s mayoral nomination. Elicker appears to have united much of the powerful local Democratic organization behind him. Governor Ned Lamont and other Democratic officials have rallied behind Elicker.

Governor Ned Lamont revealed key elements of his transportation-plan-in-formation to nervous Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi. Talk of tolls and their impact on local roads have made their way into Ridgefield’s local elections.

Major work on I-84 in the Danbury area is on the Department of Transportation’s list of priority projects. That project raises the prospect of tolls in the region under some of the floated, released, and discarded plans that the public have seen in the past few years.

Lamont, according to Marconi, has assured his fellow Democrat that there will be no tolls in the area. This is more information than many legislators have received on the state of the transportation plan, but they are not facing the voters next week. Marconi is a priority because politics always is.

A year ago, the grim practices of the United Kingdom’s payday lenders occupied a central place in Connecticut’s contest for governor. Republican Bob Stefanowski had spent much of the campaign (including his surprise primary win with 30% of the vote in a crowded field) touting his business experience. Scrutiny was not his friend.

Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont’s campaign spent a chunk of their candidate’s fortune shining an unflattering light on payday loan lenders. Stefanowski’s experience running a British loan shark company changed a portion of his campaign narrative. The Stefanowski campaign strained to contain the story with a “you did it too” response, claiming that Lamont had profited from an investment in a payday lender that his wife’s venture capital firm had made.

The legacy of payday lending exploitation in Britain is coming to an end. The nation’s largest player, QuickQuid, is shuttering its windows and terminating its app applications. The company will leave behind thousands of unresolved complaints.

Connecticut may get a few more rounds of loan sharking reminders in the 2022 gubernatorial election.

Dear Ructions,

I’m running for office in my town for the first time. I have been knocking on doors, attending events, raising some money, keeping up with Facebook, and getting spots for signs. What should I be doing in the last week before Election Day?

Sign me,

Eager and green

Dear Eager,

What an exciting time for you. This is the week to tie all together your work of the last few months. If you kept lists of the voters you met, send them a card reminding them you enjoyed your contact and that Tuesday is Election Day. For voters you missed when you knocked on their door, tell them you look forward to seeing them at the polls. Narrow your focus. Concentrate on voters who have voted in previous local elections and people you know but typically skip municipal elections. 

If you have voting age children put one of them in charge of making sure their friends vote. You will note an uptick in interest. People will ask how they can help. Put them on phones and the doorsteps to contact the voters you have identified as supporters. Also have them review voter rolls from 2017. They will find plenty of people they know but didn’t vote in your last local elections. They can be one of the few rich veins of adding to turnout. So can voters who are new to your town, though most Connecticut communities do not have a lot of those.

Assign someone clever to monitor social media to douse outbreaks of its particular ugliness. Do not touch an absentee ballot application. 

UPDATE: A reader write candidates and their campaign volunteers should text family and friends at midday to ask if they have voted and remind them one more time that it’s important and if they have not they still have time.

UPDATE: Another reader would like to remind candidates that the campaign ends on Tuesday at 8 p.m., not Monday not. Keep making the personal ask. “May I, please, have your vote?” Also, don’t drink for the next week. Alcohol weakens the filter and can cause candidates to say stupid things on social media.

If you are impaled on the horns of a dilemma and want to risk receiving advice, send a message to kfr@dailyructions.com. Identities will be protected. Messages may be edited.