Rob Werner, the Democratic candidate for the 141st District in the state’s House of Representatives, will be at The Darien Times community coffee event at the Sugar Bowl on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 10:30.
For the first time since 2006, the Democrats have nominated a candidate to run for the long-time Republican held 141st District seat.
In May, Darien Democrats announced they’d “enthusiastically” unanimously nominated Werner, a Darien resident and Hartford native, for the seat.
State Rep. Terrie Wood recently announced she’d be seeking a third term in the redrawn 141st District, which now includes less of Darien and more of Norwalk than it has in at least a generation.
Wood has run unopposed the last two times. After the recent redistricting, the 141st gained voters from the 140th District, which includes South Norwalk. The 141st still includes the Rowayton section of South Norwalk.
Werner attended the University of Pennsylvania, Trinity College and the University of Connecticut Law School. He is licensed to practice in Connecticut and federal district courts.
He has worked in the state Supreme Court for the reporter of judicial decisions, as an associate in the law firm of Brady, Tamoney, Willard & Alexander, corporate counsel for Ames Department Stores, and general counsel for FW Enterprises, a real estate development firm in West Hartford. He currently sits on the Democratic Town Committee.
In his speech to the convention at Town Hall in May, Werner said “here in Darien and Norwalk, we are often frustrated, disappointed, chagrined with our voice in the Connecticut House of Representatives, and yet we keep doing the same thing, over, and over, and over again.”
Specifically, Werner said it was “time to elect a representative who will go to Hartford and propose reasonable change to the affordable housing statute 8-30g, reasonable changes that will make sense for communities like Darien who are 98% developed.”
Werner also used to write a column for The Darien Times, and some of his columns received outrage from readers, including one who said she was “left speechless,” claiming one of his works was “laden with shallow, stereotypical observations and misogynistic overtones.”
Werner told The Darien Times that many of the pieces he wrote are almost 10 years old. He continued to write columns for the Journal Inquirer of Manchester after 2005.
“I like to think I’ve become more tolerant of everyone’s idiosyncrasies in the last decade, rich and poor alike, but those opinion pieces are an accurate reflection of how I felt on the day I wrote them,” Werner said.
