Connecticut House of Representatives District 53

Patricia Wilson Pheanious served as social services commissioner from 1999 to 2007. She is a graduate of E.O. Smith High School in Mansfield and a graduate of the University of Connecticut’s schools of law and social work. After retiring, Pheanious decided to use her executive experience, legal training and other experience to help improve her community. “Crumbling foundations in our area is a devastating problem and affects everyone in the region and the state potentially because it falls on the tax base,” she says, adding that the decrease in property values is putting a financial squeeze on taxpayers and in turn causing budget cuts to education.