Linda's Southeastern CT Real Estate Blog

Ledyard is a small town with 15,000 people.  Besides owning a real estate business in town,  I also serve on the Ledyard Town Council.  When I am in the local grocery store and someone stops me with a question, it can be to ask about the price of their neighbors home... or whether their street will be repaved soon.

Mixing politics and real estate can be a delicate balance but I've managed to juggle both for a number of years.  It was probably the hardest juggling act when I served as Chairman of the Board of Education. In that position, you can easily make as many friends as enemies.  Since then I moved on to the Ledyard Town Council.  And while the election returns gave me the chairmanship, I put my ego aside and passed the gavel to someone who really wanted the job.  I decided to serve instead as the chairman of the Land Use and Planning Committee. 

I'm a conservative (a member of the vast right wing conspiracy) and most people in town know my politics but I have listed the homes of the most liberal among us. It is easy to make enemies in politics, but I find that disagreeing with someone shouldn't necessarily harbor bad feelings. There are very few people I wouldn't want to join for a morning cup of coffee.  The biggest benefit of being involved in public office is gaining current local knowledge that would be hard to obtain in other ways. 

There is, of course, the ugly side of politics.  I see it first hand at times at our twice monthly council meetings.  It is hard to make progress in a small town where egos are large and personal agendas include keeping the party in power from moving forward with their ideas. In addition, our meetings are televised and I find there is a certain amount of grandstanding for the camera. I don't play to the camera and at times need to remind myself not to get caught picking my nose or reading the email on my Blackberry.  I prefer to speak when I actually have something to say which is rare for a politician.   

My name is Linda Davis and I am a weather weenie!

I'm not sure when I first developed such a keen interest in weather but it was sometime after I moved to Ledyard, CT in 1974.  In fact, I am so much of a "weather weenie" that during the 2004 Hurricane season, I signed online to a paid weather service, Accuweather Professional.  While reading Meteorologist Joe Lundberg's blog, I paged down to his biography.  "Joe was born in Washington, D.C, on November 22, 1961.  When he was 9 months old, his family moved to Ledyard, Connecticut, where he graduated from Ledyard High School in 1979."  Needless to say, I was delighted to find a Ledyard High School grad who had made a career of one my favorite subjects.  I emailed Joe and asked if he could share with me how he found his way from the town of Ledyard to Accuweather.  Joe was kind enough to email me back and I found out plenty more about Joe's road to becoming a Meteorologist.  I wrote an article about Joe in my "I Love Ledyard" newspaper and in it he shared his memories of Ledyard during New England's blizzard of '78.   

Since our exchange of emails,  I've met Joe in person and this summer we even played a round of golf together.  He predicted great weather and it was indeed the perfect day for golf even if my golf game was far from perfect!  Joe is also now working in television, broadcasting live for MSNBC on weekends.

I thought of Joe today when I read his Accuweather blog where he wrote "If I were back home in Ledyard, CT, it looks to me like another case of a cold day (tomorrow) with sunshine followed by some late-day clouds, giving way to some snow at the start, and I go to bed all smiles because I just KNOW I won't have school the next day, only to wake up with the ground BARE with a pouring rain pounding on the rooftop."    I smiled when I read that.  We haven't had a real blizzard for many years and I've woken up many days to that same disappointment that Joe felt as a kid.  Expecting snow and getting rain.  I can still hope. 

Now back to the weenie part.  For Christmas, I bought my husband a real live wireless weather station from Davis Instruments.  (No relation.) Ok, so my husband knows I really bought it for me but fortunately he's a weenie too. My weather station is now stationed on my back deck measuring all things weather related with the anemometer on the roof.  AND NOW....with the Weatherlink Software, I hope to soon have my own online weather website.  I'll link to it from my website and blog.  Now, how cool is that?

Coming soon to a state near you??

Several years ago I received a referral from an old real estate friend from Texas.   The referral was for a buyer moving to New Hampshire.  I reminded her that I work in Connecticut.  She replied. "But it's still in New England and all those states are so little."  She's right of course. Connecticut is a little state.  In under two hours, I can reach Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York.  I hadn't thought about that referral  in a long time but remembered it today, as the launching of our new State-Wide MLS is about to happen. 

A Connecticut State Wide MLS has been talked about for many years.  Rhode Island, our little next door neighbor has had a State Wide MLS for years.   As with any good idea, the personal agendas and the big egos usually got in the way.  But last year, the timing was right and the hurdles didn't seem so high after all.  Cooperation became king.  So, on January 10th, we will have one MLS, one MLS vendor, data in one format and one set of MLS rules.  Well, almost.  Unfortunately, there are a few board hold outs.  Lucky for me the hold outs are at the opposite end of the state.  And I predict (it's the Carnac in me) that before the years end, the membership of the boards who are not joining now will force the issue and we will be one happy family.

How cool is that?  

Back to my friend in Texas.  If Connecticut and Rhode Island can adopt a single MLS, is a New England MLS far behind?  After all, those states are so little.