The Transparency Test:

Bloomfield’s Vice Chair Race and the Shadow of Financial Crisis

AI-generated satirical cartoon (Gemini) for the Dispatch.

Bloomfield DTC Vice Chair Race 2026: McClary Faces Garcia & Schulman Amid Credit Downgrade Crisis

Editor's Note: The Public Record and the "Hit Piece" Deflection (March 18, 7:00 PM)

Following the publication of this article, The Dispatch has received comments characterizing our reporting as a "hit piece," questioning our use of FOIA requests, and expressing offense at our political cartoons. Journalistic transparency demands a direct response.

• The "Hit Piece" Accusation: A hit piece relies on unverified rumors. This article is grounded entirely in empirical facts: state audits, official OPM warning letters, and S&P Global Ratings documents. Furthermore, both Kenneth McClary and the DTC Chair were given multiple, documented opportunities over the course of a month to set forth their positions. They actively chose to stonewall the press. A candidate's refusal to answer difficult questions does not render the reporting of their public record a "hit piece."
• The FOIA "Waste" Argument: Critics have labeled our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests "diabolical" and a waste of taxpayer resources. The Dispatch fundamentally rejects this premise. FOIA is the legal mechanism by which the press and the public hold their government accountable when officials refuse to operate in the light. If the administration were transparent, FOIA complaints would not be necessary.
• The Satirical Cartoons: We utilize an AI module to generate classic, newspaper-style political satire. The prompts provided to the AI relied strictly on the candidates' objective demographics and metaphorical political actions (e.g., "sweeping audits under a rug"). They are caricatures meant to visually illustrate a political narrative—a cornerstone of American journalism—and harbor no racial animus.

Finally, to the anonymous commenter quoting The Help and asking if we are tired: No. We're just getting started.

By Peter C. Frank | Editor-in-Chief

March 17, 2026

UPDATED: March 18, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

This article has been updated to include expert political analysis from Dr. James Newman, as well as newly obtained logistical details regarding tonight's DTC meeting. The organizational meeting will take place tonight, Wednesday, March 18th at 7:00 PM (via Zoom or in person at 330 Park Ave, Bloomfield, CT). While all executive office positions are up for election with nominations from the floor, the Male Vice-Chair is currently the only contested position. Special guests in attendance will include Gubernatorial candidate Josh Elliot and Senatorial Candidates Doug McCrory, Maryam Khan, and Ayana Taylor. Attendees are urged to come with questions prepared.

BLOOMFIELD, CT — Tomorrow evening, exactly 65 residents will decide the immediate and long-term futures of Bloomfield’s governance. On Wednesday, March 18th, the Bloomfield Democratic Town Committee (DTC) will hold its internal election to select its executive leadership, including the highly contested position of male Vice Chair.

In a town where registered Democrats hold a commanding 9,238 to 1,293 voter advantage over Republicans, the November general elections are often a formality. The true center of political gravity lies within the DTC. The committee’s 65 elected members control ballot access and candidate endorsements, effectively dictating virtually every facet of town governance — from the Town Council, the Board of Education, and the Planning and Zoning Commission, to the Zoning Board of Appeals, Library Board of Trustees, and Registrar of Voters. Their reach extends to the town's executive branch as well, including the Town Clerk, the Board of Assessment Appeals, and the Mayor. The Mayor is appointed by the Town Council from among its members and historically has been the top vote-getter in the general election. However, according to Roy Duncan, a longtime Bloomfield resident and community advocate, the current council broke this long-standing tradition to retain its existing power structure.

This year’s Vice Chair race has fractured the party into three distinct camps, forcing a referendum on transparency, minority inclusion, and an unresolved fiscal crisis with no modern precedent in the town's history.

The Candidates: Transparency vs. Silence

The race features three declared candidates: Edwin "Ed" Garcia, former Mayor Syd Schulman, and former Town Councilor Kenneth McClary. The starkest division between the candidates is not necessarily their platforms, but their willingness to face public scrutiny. All three candidates provided letters of intent.

As part of its ongoing investigation into municipal governance, the Bloomfield Community Dispatch issued press inquiries to all three candidates. Both Garcia and Schulman provided on-the-record responses regarding their platforms and the town's current trajectory.

Kenneth McClary, whom multiple DTC members privately described to the Dispatch as the frontrunner for the position, did not respond to multiple press inquiries submitted by email and phone over the course of nearly a month — including a direct request for comment issued prior to publication. He communicated only through his platform's one-way letter of intent distributed to the 65 voting members. In that letter — the only statement he made available — McClary offered no forward-looking policy platform, citing his tenure as Finance Committee Chair as the singular basis for his candidacy. He is the only candidate in this race who has declined to engage with independent press, and — to the Dispatch's knowledge — the only one who has actively blocked a member of the press on social media after being questioned about his record in his official capacity.

Expert Analysis: Addressing the political implications of a frontrunner stonewalling independent media, James Newman, PhD, a political scientist and public administration expert at Southeast Missouri State University, told the Dispatch: "What this signals is that the candidate does not feel he/she has to or should answer questions. In other words, the endorsement is more valuable than what could be gained from persuading the public."

Dr. Newman further noted what this predicts for future accountability: "It is not a positive sign that transparency and accountability will be a concern of the candidate. The candidate owes allegiance to the party leadership. This allegiance is more important to staying in office than needing public support... In short, the trust of the voter is placed in a party's executive committee rather than an objective vetting of the candidate in a public forum."

AI-generated satirical cartoon (Gemini) for the Dispatch.

The Frontrunner’s Financial Record

📋 KEY TERMS: WHAT BLOOMFIELD'S FINANCIAL CRISIS MEANS FOR YOU

• Credit Rating: A letter grade that tells lenders how likely a borrower — here, the town — is to repay its debts. A lower rating means higher interest costs when Bloomfield needs to borrow money for schools, roads, or other capital projects.
• CreditWatch Negative: S&P's warning flag that a further downgrade is likely in the near term — the agency puts the odds at roughly one in two.
• Audit: An independent review of the town's financial records, required by state law to be filed annually by December 31st. Bloomfield has not filed one on time since FY2020.
• CAP (Corrective Action Plan): A written plan required by state law whenever an audit identifies financial control failures. Bloomfield has not filed a single one in response to any of the material weaknesses found in recent audits.
• MFAC (Municipal Finance Advisory Commission): A state body that monitors Connecticut towns in fiscal distress. Bloomfield is currently eligible for Tier I oversight designation.
• OPEB: Other Post-Employment Benefits — primarily health coverage promised to retired town employees. Bloomfield's OPEB obligations are significantly underfunded.
• Material Weakness: An auditor's finding that a town's financial controls have failed badly enough that errors or fraud could go undetected. Bloomfield has had multiple material weaknesses flagged in recent audits.

Public records tell a different story. As Chair of the Finance, Budget, Audit & Bonding Subcommittee — the body with direct oversight responsibility for ensuring annual audits are completed and submitted on time — McClary presided over five consecutive fiscal years of late, non-compliant, or unfiled audits. FY2020 was the last year Bloomfield filed its audit on time. Every audit since has been late, non-compliant, or not filed at all. FY2021 and FY2022 were filed 'Non-Compliant' under state standards; FY2023 was filed delinquent; the FY2024 audit — now nearly 21 months since the close of that fiscal year — has not been filed at all; and the FY2025 audit, due December 31, 2025, cannot even begin until FY2024 is resolved. [SOURCE]

The failures go deeper than missed deadlines. The town has not filed a single Corrective Action Plan (CAP) with the state in response to the material weaknesses identified in prior audits — a filing that is required under state law whenever such weaknesses are found. Not one. These cascading failures have made Bloomfield eligible for Tier I designation under the Municipal Finance Advisory Commission (MFAC), under Connecticut General Statute § 7-395d.

The consequences of those failures were not abstract to McClary. On July 18, 2025, he personally received a formal warning letter from the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management notifying Bloomfield of its eligibility for Tier I state oversight. He then corresponded directly with state officials about the urgency of a September 10th compliance deadline. Three days after receiving that letter, he sat as Chair of his own Finance Subcommittee while the Finance Director characterized the state's warning to the committee as merely a 'municipal finance advisory committee' matter — a description the Dispatch's reporting found to be false in its essential meaning. McClary said nothing to correct the record.

That July meeting would mark the beginning of a documented pattern: questions about McClary's financial record would go unanswered, press inquiries would go unreturned, and those who asked them would find themselves blocked.

The town has publicly stated it aims to return to compliant audit filing by the end of the calendar year 2026. That means completing both the FY2024 and FY2025 audits in less than nine months, while the FY2024 audit is nearly 21 months outstanding, and the town is currently developing its FY2027 budget using unaudited financial statements that are more than two years old.

This administrative failure has triggered severe economic consequences. As we previously reported, Bloomfield received two financial blows in the past six months alone: on September 19, 2025, Moody's withdrew its credit rating. [SOURCE] The town did not prominently publicize the Moody's withdrawal on its website. Then, on December 30, 2025, S&P Global Ratings downgraded Bloomfield’s general obligation debt to 'AA' and placed it on "CreditWatch Negative," explicitly citing the missing audits. S&P warned of a "one-in-two likelihood" of either further downgrades or withdrawing the town's credit rating entirely if the financials are not produced by the end of March 2026 — a deadline that is now less than two weeks away. This move could significantly increase future borrowing costs for residents who have already seen substantial multi-year tax increases — including double-digit increases in FY2026, with additional double-digit increases projected over the next three years as the 2024 property revaluation phases in — accumulated against a backdrop of compounding fiscal liabilities during the years McClary chaired the Finance Committee, as documented in previous Dispatch reporting (The Tax Reality Check, November 2025).

The town has publicly maintained that services and taxes are unaffected by the rating action, stating in its own press release that 'no tax impact is expected' because no new debt issuance is planned in the near term. [SOURCE] The Dispatch's own reporting contradicts that characterization: FOIA requests are going unprocessed — ten formal complaints have now been filed against the town with the state Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC), double the five documented in the Dispatch's March 7 report (Constructive Denial) — town staff positions have been cut, and resident services have been scaled back. The credit downgrade is a symptom of a much deeper dysfunction.

The actions of the credit agencies aren't isolated. As the Dispatch has previously reported, Bloomfield carries significant unfunded long-term liabilities — including underfunded pension obligations and a net OPEB liability that stood at approximately $75 million as of FY2023 — reduced on paper from $97 million not through cash payments but through actuarial assumption changes, as previously reported (Crisis of Governance Part 3, December 2025). These liabilities make the missing audits even more urgent — without completed financial statements, the town cannot fully account for what it owes, to whom, or when.

McClary maintains documented political ties to State Senator Doug McCrory. McCrory is currently the subject of an active federal grand jury investigation following a state forensic audit of the Blue Hills Civic Association, a Hartford nonprofit, in which auditors found patterns they said "strongly suggest potential fraud and misappropriation of public funds by BHCA and related parties." McCrory has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime. [SOURCES: CT Mirror | Inside Investigator] The Dispatch asked McClary whether he had any concerns about his ties to McCrory in light of the audit findings; he did not respond.

AI-generated satirical cartoon (Gemini) for the Dispatch.

The Challengers: Inclusion and Mediation

In stark contrast to the frontrunner’s silence, Edwin Garcia and Syd Schulman addressed the party's internal divisions directly.

Garcia, who is running to open the committee's processes, did not mince words regarding the current power structure. In an interview with the Dispatch, he described the DTC's operations as "19th-century politics of exclusion," pointing out that a small faction dictates town policy while shutting out grassroots workers and minority demographics, calling them "Juan Crow" laws — a Spanglish echo of "Jim Crow," the system of racial segregation laws that disenfranchised Black Americans for nearly a century after the Civil War.

Garcia specifically highlighted the lack of Hispanic representation. "There is no place for Latinos at the table whatsoever," Garcia stated, noting the complete absence of Latino residents on the town's boards, commissions, and Town Council, despite Hispanic and Latino residents comprising 8.4% of Bloomfield's population according to census data. He committed to opening the party's books and ensuring the committee reflects the town's diversity rather than a closed network of personal friends.

The factional tensions extend to documented public conduct. In a public forum, McClary allegedly accused a white, Jewish female resident of exhibiting 'white rage,' according to Garcia, community advocate Roy Duncan — a longtime, vocal Bloomfield resident — and multiple other witnesses whose accounts were corroborated by posts in a community social media group reviewed by the Dispatch. The incident does not appear in the official meeting minutes for that session — itself a transparency question. The Dispatch submitted a press inquiry to McClary regarding the allegation; he did not respond.

Syd Schulman, a former Bloomfield Mayor, confirmed his candidacy for the male vice chair position in a February 27 email to the Dispatch, positioning himself as a stabilizing force.

"My primary motivation... is to try to bring the Democratic world in Bloomfield together," Schulman wrote. "I believe that I can serve as a mediator of the disputes among them."

Schulman agreed with Garcia regarding the exclusion of the Latino community but pointed to a broader systemic issue. "When you have the divisions among the various political groups, members of one or another of the groups 'not in the in' are excluded from participation," Schulman stated. "Obviously, transparency suffers when closed-door agreements are reached without the input of other groups because of the division that exists. That has to stop!"

The decision by Garcia and Schulman to actively challenge this established power structure carries significant weight. As Dr. Newman observed regarding the dynamics of such a race: "In a strong one-party community, going against the party leadership is akin to political suicide... The candidates who are 'taking on' the leadership are true believers in their cause and are likely more authentic in their positions. If the candidate was saying whatever is necessary to win, the candidate would support the party line. But the challenger is clearly not doing this. Why would a challenger take on the establishment? To create real change."

In a late-breaking tactical development, Garcia confirmed to the Dispatch that a contingency alliance — an agreement to consolidate votes if one candidate falls short — has been formed between the two challengers. According to Garcia, if Schulman determines he has less delegate support during Wednesday's vote, Schulman will encourage his supporters to endorse Garcia over McClary. This move signals a coordinated effort to consolidate the reform-minded bloc of challengers against the establishment frontrunner.

The Voter’s Recourse

While the 4,809 unaffiliated voters in Bloomfield have no direct voice in Wednesday's internal party election, the town's registered Democrats are represented by the 65 elected members of the DTC.

These 65 committee members act as delegates for their respective districts. As the town faces the imminent threat of a withdrawn credit rating and continuous audit failures, the choice of Vice Chair will serve as a definitive signal: a vote to continue the fiscal mismanagement and closed-door operations of recent years, or a vote to mandate transparency, inclusion, and accountability at the highest levels of local power.

While the Dispatch made multiple attempts to obtain the time and location of tonight's meeting from DTC leadership—inquiries that were completely ignored—a concerned citizen has since provided the logistical details. The organizational meeting will take place tonight, Wednesday, March 18th at 7:00 PM, with options to attend via Zoom or in person at 330 Park Ave, Bloomfield, CT.

All executive office positions are up for election with nominations accepted from the floor, though the male Vice-Chair remains the only contested race. Notably, State Senator Doug McCrory—whose political ties to McClary are documented above—is slated to attend alongside Gubernatorial candidate Josh Elliot and Senatorial candidates Maryam Khan and Ayana Taylor. Attendees are urged to come with questions prepared.

Registered Democrats wishing to weigh in on the future of their party's leadership are urged to contact their district's DTC representatives before tonight's vote.