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Paul Chaplinsky Jr
Current Vice Chairman - Town Council
I am a 37+ year citizen of Southington with strong family and moral values. I grew up on the west side near Jude Lane and now reside with my wife and two children on the east side near Pleasant Street. I have served our community the last 2 years on the Southington Town Council, also leading our Open Space & Farm Heritage Committee. I previously served 11 years on the Southington Planning and Zoning Commission. My community volunteer efforts also previously brought me to the Southington North Baseball Board of Directors (4 years) and Mill Foundation For Kids Board of Director member (7+ years; ongoing). I have volunteered for Southington Community Services, the Southington Drive-In, among other groups in town, and also most recently led the two-year community and volunteer-based project to relocate and restore the historic Walkley Fountain on the Plantsville Town Green, at no cost to our taxpayers.
While serving Southington as a Town Councilman, I lead the Open Space & Farm Heritage Committee, with a team of wonderfully dedicated volunteers. Our focus the last two years has been on strong land preservation, while protecting and promoting farming heritage in our community. Since our team started in November 2019, 196 acres of preserved land has been added to our preservation list, including Greenleaf Stables, Karabin Farms and Southington Country Club, which will forever prevent residential land on these parcels. We are also preserving the LEAF and Grosky Barns with roofing renovation projects. Grosky’s Barn is also getting a cleanup with water and power having been added to bring livestock back to this parcel, which hasn’t been present in decades. Finally, the PleasantView parcel next to DePaolo continues to have active gardening through the LEAF program with DePaolo middle school students. A Boy Scout is working with the committee to replace the aging fencing along the Pleasant Street Roadway to improve its aesthetics. As a Town Councilman, I believe in a more efficient and transparent government, with strong collaboration between boards and town staff and continued land preservation actions. Efficient and collaboration means to me that we are not wasting taxpayer dollars and should find ways to ensure we focus on promoting and fostering economic development – especially small business, while also continuing to make smart investments in our roads and infrastructure and our safety and first responders. Having been a first responder for about 15 years at my company, I understand the value of our public safety teams and that’s why I also supported recent investments these last two years in both police officers and fire-fighters to bolster safety in our community, while also supporting seniors and our residents by maintaining a 0% tax increase through strong fiscal policy. I believe we continue to need a fully funded police force that continues to be collaborative in our community, with revised state legislation around repeat juvenile offenders, to combat the criminal activity we continue to endure. Our education system has seen significant year over year investments through state and federal funding which has allowed our boards to realize strong educational investment growth for students and teachers, while making responsible fiscally budgeting decisions locally to keep our town budget at 0% tax increase to the taxpayers the last two years. This will not continue indefinitely so good planning and a strong collaborative approach to fund our educational priorities will be needed to be successful in the years ahead. In my professional life I have worked the last 25+ years at Henkel Corporation, through the acquisition of Loctite Corporation. My roles have spanned across Global Innovation Management, Engineering for The Americas and Product Development and currently I serve as Vice President, New Business Development, where my responsibilities focus on customer production equipment and enabling the capturing of data in our customers production, to promote a Data as a Service business model. I graduated Southington High School and completed a BS in Chemistry at CCSU. After starting my career, I completed Master Degrees separately in both Engineering Sciences (Rensselaer Polytechnic University - RPI) and Business Administration (University of Hartford). I hope my passion and past service record; community volunteer activities and my professional experience will compel you to support me in my re-election to Southington’s Town Council. I appreciate your vote and continued confidence to represent you in the upcoming election. |