BURRILLVILLE – Stacey Slekis, a Democrat seeking election to the Burrillville Town Council, said she is running in hopes to foster a positive environment where residents feel welcomed and encouraged to speak freely with council members.
“As I spoke with residents while collecting nomination signatures, many shared their negative experiences when they have spoken at meetings,” Slekis said. “Later, I watched the videos, which confirmed their statements. No good ever comes from yelling and telling residents that they are wrong. Naturally, you will always have differences of opinion, however you can still disagree and have healthy productive conversations. When you have a welcoming environment where people feel comfortable to speak freely, you open the path for collaboration. When you have transparency, trust, and collaboration, anything is possible.”
Slekis said she made the decision to run after being approached by a fellow resident
“Along with many residents, I was heavily involved in fighting the proposed power plant,” Slekis said. “I was contacted by fellow resident and power plant opponent, Cynthia Lussier, who asked me if I would consider running for Town Council.”
Slekis shared Lussier’s note.
“As the deadline to declare candidacy for local offices was fast approaching, I thought about who would be a good candidate for Town Council and, who would be willing to throw their hat in the ring,” Lussier wrote. “I immediately thought of my former neighbor Stacey Slekis. I have known Stacey and her family since they moved to Burrillville. I have found her to be a very hard worker and someone who is a very intelligent, capable individual. She holds a leadership position at a large RI-based company and works with people from all over the country. Her ability to manage a workforce, set goals and reach consensus are all much needed qualities that are essential for a council member to possess.”
“Stacey was very active in the movement to prevent the Invenergy power plant from being sited in our town,” Lussier continued. “She volunteers her time on many school-related and other organizations in town. If elected, I am sure that Stacey will be respectful of residents that come before the council and fully review and thoroughly vet proposals, budgets and plans prior to voting. She will come to meetings prepared to discuss and ask tough questions of agenda items. Please join me in voting for Stacey Slekis for Burrillville Town Council on Election Day.”
“It has been truly humbling to have so many residents personally reach out to me and tell me how excited they are that I have decided to run,” Slekis said.
When asked what she hopes to change on the Town Council, if elected, Slekis noted, “The current Town Council does a good job ensuring our schools and police are well funded, along with the overall budget. However, I would like our Town Council to go back to the days where we are all focused on issues that directly pertain to the town and our residents.”
“While I understand that some state and national issues become hot topics, I believe it is the duty of council members to focus on town matters,” she added. “There are state and national positions to fight those topics and Town Council is not one of them. For example, I am a strong supporter of the 2nd amendment, however my opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinions of all Burrillville residents. I do not agree with using our tax dollars to fight state/national legislation.”
“Our current Town Council president has used his position to encourage residents to break the law, while playing ‘show and tell’ by placing a gun magazine in front of him at town council meetings,” Slekis said. “While I do not support the magazine ban, our Town Council meetings are not the proper forum. I can certainly empathize with Mr. Fox’s passion on protecting our constitutional rights, however council should not be encouraging citizens to break the law, nor entertain using our town tax dollars to fight the ban. This mindset continues to portray our town in a negative light at the state and national level.”
Stacey brings more than 25 years of experience working in the corporate world. Under her current position, she leads a team of over 20 individuals.
“I am incredibly proud to work for one of Rhode Island’s largest insurers for the past 25 plus years,” she said. “Coming from a company that prides itself on superior customer service and always putting the customer first, I am thankful for the exceptional leadership skills that I have learned throughout my tenure.”
Currently serving as the treasurer of Wilsons Lake Association and president of the Burrillville High School Band Boosters, she has previously served as vice-president of the Callahan School PTF for many years, along with vice-president of the Burrillville High School Band Boosters. She has also served as a Girl Scout Troop leader for many years.
“Volunteering has always been a big part of my life. I always wanted to be involved and help while my children were in school,” Slekis said. “I also love serving our community. When you see the smiles and joy that these events bring to the children, it’s priceless.”
“I want to ensure that we maintain the rural character of our town that I, along with so many others, love. The beauty of Burrillville is what brought me here some 18 years ago. I love our forests, lakes, and our quaint little town. I love our small ‘hometown’ feel and the close-knit community that we have,” Slekis said. “We need to ensure that we maintain a good balance of economic development without impacting that beauty.”
An administrator for the 8,100 member Burrillville Town Page on facebook, along with Simply Stacey Living Facebook page with more than 19,000 followers, Stacey lives in Burrillville with her husband and two children, and enjoys spending time with family, cooking, gardening, boating, camping, and spending time with her dogs, Oreo and Clover.
Stacey’s candidacy can be followed Stacey Slekis – Burrillville Town Council Candidate on Facebook. Campaign donations can be made directly here on ActBlue.
Mr. Fox using the analogy of the power plant to gun control is apples and oranges. Power plant was opposed by huge majority in town, where the gun control measure is highly disputed. Nationally common sense gun control has 70% approval. Locally I realize is probably in 50/50 ratio( admittedly guesstimate). For you to bring this agenda to council meeting is out of the realm of your responsibilities. As I have recently started attending meetings I do commend members on the day to day function of town government. This is why I spoke up at that meeting. Again, my intention was to bring attention that there are residents that have different views and should be represented and respected by this council. Instead, you and other council members disrespected my opinion by arguing with me! Hence , Stacey’s statement in making the town more respective of citizens comments. Hopefully we can all learn from this and continue to make this town a community that is respected state wide.
I could not disagree more. The magazine size issue was changed by State law and not by Town ordinance. It certainly affects some people in our town but the issue will not be changed locally. I guess that is why when I see resolutions being written and voted on that in all reality don’t do anything, I wonder if this is just some show of bravado by some council members.
And by the way, I saw Stacey Slekis at Invenergy PP meetings and at fundraisers as well.
I grow concerned when I see 4 men running for town council that seem to think with one mind. Personally, I believe that we all benefit when we open ourselves up to new and different ideas and approaches. We have an opportunity to do that by electing Stacey to the Burrillville Town Council.
Cindy,
Wow, bringing gender into this now as well? What was Amanda Gingell the past 4 years. She and I voted the same about 99.5% of the time. I woudl have endorsed her wholeheartedly if she ran again. I in fact begged her to run again, but understood that family commitments had to come first. Please do not play the weak, usal card of the left and make this a gender thing. Did you say the same when Nancy, Kim and Micelle where on the Council toegether and voted the same on issues? No, because it is the issue we look at regardless of the gender of the Council member.
In identifying Ms. Slekis’ support of fighting to prevent the permitting of the Invenergy power plant in Burrillville (as if that was a “bad” thing), it seems that Mr Fox doesn’t understand the difference between appropriately standing in opposition by “following the process” vs. choosing to violate the law! And lest we forget, our illustrious Town Council at the time was initially quite happy to go along with Invenergy’s proposal – until, of course, they feared their own re-elections! SMH …
Mr. Richmond,
The proposed power plant at the time would have netted the Town approximately $5 million per year in tax revenue. That was equal to about 10% of the Town’s annual budget at the time and would have resulted in massive savings for our taxpayers. Any Town Council would have looked at it with interest. The potential to also clean the aquifer at the abandoned Mobil station site was also a positive that we had to consider. When people came out and wanted to oppose the plant, we did so, not out of fear for re-election, but because the majority that we saw and heard from wanted us to fight it. That is what we are decided to do. We then signed the tax treaty, which no one wanted us to do, but it was the right thing to do. It funded our eventual fight against Invenergy. So, you must excuse me if I care little of your commentary on the power plant battle. It was waged and like most battles was messy at times. But we won.
And let me clarify, I do not have firsthand knowledge of what Ms. Slekis did for the power plant fight. I do not recall seeing her at meetings and am taking her comments on good faith that she was a part of the group.
As to your comments on violating law, why don’t you take a hard look at the magazine law and how people who have done nothing but buy a legal magazine, perhaps 3-4 decades ago, will technically be violating the law and become instant felons overnight, through no action of their own. The law violates their Constitutional rights. If you do not see the difference here, I cannot help you.
If Ms. Slekis feels that the Town should not fight against state laws, why did she support our fight against the EFSB’s proposed siting of Invenergy? The EFSA is state law and we spent a great deal of town money fighting it.
She clearly does not support the 2nd amendment either if she is so willing to roll over and let the State make felons of hundreds, if not thousands of our residents. Typical drivel from someone who will NOT stand up for the rights of town residents.
Finally, the Town Council is not and has never been a place that intimidates residents, for as long as I have been on it. I have never met anyone who felt intimidated by the Burrillville Town Council. Disagreement is fine on issues and that is bound to happen from issue to issue. If one does not like an issue, that is fine and that person knows how to vote. Our town is financially well run, has been for years and our goal is to continue that. I feel that Steve Rawson, Dennis Anderson, David Houle and I will do a great job continuing such work.
Hearsay seems to be a major part of Ms Slekis’ platform thus far. If she has an issue with more than tone and tenor of debate, let’s hear it. So far she agrees that we have made good policy, protected tax payers, funded our schools, continue to fix roads and provide services. Her main contention is that we should not adhere to the oaths that we swore to uphold the Constitution and in fact allow our residents to be deprived of those rights. That is not a person that you want representing you or your families.