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Newington Republican Town Council members were caught by surprise.

It seems at least one Town Council Democrat has been quietly coordinating a pride crosswalk—possibly at Market Square or an alleyway—without mentioning it to his conservative colleagues.

The first time Republicans heard of it was when the Connecticut Centinal asked after FOI emails surfaced in relation to the town's on-going flag policy controversy.

In a May 13, 2026 email, Town Manager Jonathan Altshul asked staff to seek CIRMA’s opinion on liability for a “multi-color Pride crosswalk,” indicating there was "interest at the Town Council level" and noting Local Traffic Authority concerns under federal guidelines that such designs could create visual distractions and new hazards for pedestrians.

A follow-up May 22 email from Altshul to Councilor Matt Plourd proposed an on-site meeting with staff (Chris Z, Paul, Rob, and Altshul himself) “to sketch out what the pride flag design might look like in the alleyway,” including brick-and-concrete options and a possible walk-down to Market Square crosswalks. "Reaching a consensus on that design would dictate cost and paint types," Altshul wrote.

CIRMA’s response indicated crosswalk art is permissible provided the artwork follows strict safety rules: no logos/text/advertising/offensive material, no colors or shapes that mimic traffic devices, artwork confined between reflective white lines, and artwork devoid of reflective properties.

The Centinal contacted Town Manager Altshul about the emails. He said, "individual members of the Town Council are free to kick the tires on any idea they want to pursue." He explained that the town's new master plan, adopted in 2025, emphasized public art, and assured that any installations, including a pride crosswalk, would be talked about publicly. He also confirmed that the "prework" picked up in the FOI emails was initiated by Councilor Plourd, adding that the "emails show there was no final agreement or decision made."

This isn’t the first time Democrats have been accused of keeping Pride-related moves under wraps, by the way.

Town Council minutes from May 28, 2024 show procedural complaints when a Pride Month proclamation (a flag-raising at Town Hall) appeared unevenly distributed in packets, with some Republicans noting they hadn’t received it.

In the same meeting, a resolution was introduced to create an official Town of Newington Pride Committee. Councilor Plourd moved it; Councilor Page seconded. The minutes explicitly state: “No vote taken; motioned tabled.”

Matt Plourd ultimately became the co-founder of Newington Pride, and appears central to the organization's efforts. He has used his “Town Councilor Matt Plourd” Facebook presence to promote LGBTQ activism, including the 3rd Annual Transgender Pride Flag Raising with language like “OUR community will not be silent” against “the largest coordinated attack on the civil rights of trans and queer people.”

At flag-raisings he has declared support for “our trans neighbors, our queer neighbors, and love is love” — although it is not exactly clear what "love is love" actually means.

He also amplified State Rep. Jillian Gilchrest’s congressional bid with its radical agenda which includes abolishing ICE, promising universal healthcare/childcare, and passing the Green New Deal, and further framed ICE's presence as an “occupation” on his Town Councilor Facebook page.

This gives the appearance that, perhaps, these are positions endorsed by the Town Council.

Pride itself is fairly new in Newington.

The first Town Hall flag-raising occurred in June 2024. Pride in the Park at Churchill Park launched as the town’s first-ever pride month event in June 2025 and returned in 2026 on Father’s Day.

Organized by Newington Pride and fiscally sponsored by The Health Collective, the event has drawn community complaints in local Facebook groups about explicit sexual items for sale in front of children, along with a young child observed staring at a furry—a photo Plourd himself shared on Facebook as a repost of Newington Pride's post.

It turns out the Health Collective and other event sponsors lean heavily on taxpayer money.

State records show The Health Collective receiving $700,000 for Hartford facility relocation/expansion, $100,000 annually in operational funding, and $387,500 of special "emergency grants" compliments of the Democrat supermajority.

Sponsors at Pride in the Park included the publicly funded Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) LGBTQ Center, Interval House (which secured ~$700,000 from the CT Department of Housing plus other state grants for renovations), and NAMI Farmington Valley (tied into broader mental-health funding streams).

Plourd’s record underscores the ideological stakes.

A former Sunrise Movement CT director and UConn graduate who founded the Newington Youth Coalition, he has issued statements decrying the phase-out of objectively harmful gender-affirming care programs at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and Yale New Haven Health as a “painful betrayal” and “capitulation to extremist pressure,” insisting such interventions are “life-saving” and essential despite the fact that the science says otherwise.

He has also promoted race-based activism, including Black Lives Matter.

Why has Councilor Plourd kept the pride crosswalk planning a secret from conservatives — and is the secrecy related to the controversy over the town's flag policy?

Why was Plourd using the Town Council email platform and town staff time to advance what appears to be his own advocacy group’s agenda?

And why should Newington taxpayers, or any taxpayers for that matter, underwrite controversial crosswalk messaging with potential traffic-liability risks, along with events in public spaces that some residents view as inappropriate for families?

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