Re-elect Katie Kenney for Board of Finance

There aren’t many Democrats in town who don’t know — or at least know of — Katie Kenney. As the chair of our Democratic Town Committee as well as a tireless member of the Board of Finance, few have contributed so much or so consistently as Katie.

Katie grew up here in town, the youngest of five daughters. Her childhood was spent following her mother, Joan Kenney, as she engaged in the vital work of reporting on our town for the Hartford Courant, and she feels the loss of that kind of in-depth local reporting deeply to this day.

Today, she lives in her childhood home with husband Michael Vogel and three of her five children, who range in age from 8 to 30. That home is well on its way to becoming a farmstead, with an apple orchard boasting apple grafts from many Canton properties and a host of livestock, including sheep, a pony, two dogs, three chickens, and two donkeys (for part of the year.)

Katie has served the town of Canton on the Board of Finance since 2018, and we wouldn’t be the same town today without her deeply felt and crucial influence. She strives to ask critical questions and truly interrogate the claims and evidence presented by administrators. As she puts it,

“It can’t be good enough for town administrators to come before the BoF and say, ‘because I say so’ or ‘because we’ve always done it this way.’ And it’s especially not okay for heads of some departments to be treated as if they’re above needing to answer questions, while others are subjected to excessive scrutiny.”

She is an indefatigable champion of the Democratic foundational philosophy that the government must be there to serve the people, and that that government must be sufficient to fulfill those needs. This means acting “as the guardians of fiscal responsibility and transparency, [who] need to make data-driven decisions based on real evidence, and we need to make sure we put in place systems for evaluating the effectiveness of the money we spend.”

Katie is also well-known for upholding the values of environmentalism and conservation throughout our town — most recently in the form of spearheading a successful bipartisan local effort to save the sycamore tree at the end of West Mountain Rd. on Cherry Brook Rd. That tree was planted over a hundred years ago and is one of just a handful of sycamores that remain in Canton, not to mention the unique and funky character it lends that intersection.

This support for the environment and the natural beauty of our town does not come at the expense of understanding the varied and complex needs of our town’s residents, including the necessity of increasing the variety of housing and businesses that are available to people wanting to move to Canton. Paired closely with this is her unwavering support for our school system and for the Board of Education as they do their challenging and crucial work of ensuring that our children have a safe, compelling, vibrant environment in which to learn and grow.

Katie’s educational background serves her well in all of these areas:

“I have advanced degrees in public administration and demography. Studying public administration gives me familiarity with how government is supposed to work, and demography means I’m comfortable analyzing the intersection of people and numbers.”

We’re sure you’ll see Katie at many of the DTC events leading up to the election. Please make sure to say hello and ask her about her thoughts on any given issue related to Canton — we can just about promise she’ll know exactly what you’re talking about and have a well-informed and balanced opinion about it!