American Dream Town featured in Hartford Courant!

Town Gets Chance At `Dream' Status
December 6, 2003
By CLAUDIA VAN NES, Courant Staff Writer

OLD SAYBROOK -- Old Saybrook is in the running to be voted an American Dream Town.
A website promoting the contest, organized by the host of a Long Island television show, puts the town ahead of Greenwich and Mystic in the balloting for the honor of being the dream town of Connecticut.

If Old Saybrook stays ahead, it would mean publicity, television coverage and possibly more - but no one can say how much.

Danielle Watts-St. Germain, the school-to-career teacher/coordinator for the school district, recently received an e-mail from a friend who works for the Mystic Chamber of Commerce asking her to vote for that town in the contest

"I went on the website and there was Old Saybrook. I took my friend's e-mail, changed the word `Mystic' to `Old Saybrook' and sent it out to everybody," Watts-St. Germain said.

When Town Planner Christine Nelson got word, she also sent e-mails to people in her address book, and the balloting has been lively ever since.

Voters have until Dec. 31 to make their online choices.

Contest organizer Ingrid Lemme promises the winning town in each state time on her television show, two pages in a book she is publishing, and some free publicity, all aimed at encouraging visitors to stop and shop in the town. But the real spoils from this unscientific survey will go to the overall winning American town, which will get six pages in the book, an hourlong television special filmed on location and the bulk of the media attention. The contest has been mentioned in, among other media, the BBC, Lemme said.

Lemme works as the public relations director for a resort in Montauk, N.Y., on the eastern tip of Long Island. She lives there and has, on the side, a talk show on the Hamptons' television station that reaches about 600,000 viewers. Now, it's up to people who visit the American Dream Town web site - www.americandreamtown.com. - to cast votes for the winning town in each state. In Connecticut, it's so far it's Old Saybrook with 3,566, votes, Mystic with 563, and Greenwich with 15 as of Friday evening.