Editors note: This article has been updated with corrected information concerning Craig Schiavone’s vote total in the Nov. 4 election. We regret the error.

By Ken Valenti

WESTPORT–Craig Schiavone, a consultant and expert in planning, development and real estate, was already well-known as co-chair of the Saugatuck Transit-Oriented Development Master Plan, among other town initiatives.

When a position was opening on the town Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) in the Nov. 4 election, “I decided to get off the sidelines and get back involved,” she said.

She returned with substantial momentum. The 6,654 votes she garnered made her the highest vote-getter among all candidates in all town races. Schiavone was endorsed by both the Democratic party and the Coalition for Westport party. Fellow candidates on the Democratic ticket, incumbent member Michael Cammeyer and alternate member Breanne Injeski, also won seats on the P&Z.

Founded in 2012, this marks the first time a Coalition for Westport candidate has won a town-wide race, according to Ken Bernhard, Deputy Chair of the coalition.

“I love this town and preserving it is really important, but we have to be cognizant that we’re moving on,” Schiavone said. “We need to develop more housing. We want to maintain local control of that as much as we can.”

Schiavone had also served on the Westport 2020 Task Force and the 2022 Implementation Committee. Her addition to the P&Z was good news to Dara Lamb, head of the Westport Alliance for Saugatuck, which endorsed her.

“Craig’s secret sauce is bringing together stakeholders across all perspectives and affiliations, doing so with grace and respect for differences of opinion,” Lamb said. “To say this is rare today cannot be overstated. This is the type of leadership and example we sorely need.”

Schiavone is involved in the community in more ways than planning. She has served as a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed representative of a child or incapacitated person in legal matters such as custody disputes. And she volunteers at the Westport Public Library. (An avid reader, she enjoys non-fiction; for ideas on novels to read, she turns to authors who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature.)

Born and raised in New Haven, Schiavone graduated Tulane University in New Orleans with a Bachelor of Arts in history and economics. After college, she worked in Washington D.C., for a company that opened new stores in malls until the City of New Haven asked her to return and serve as the city’s senior projects manager, development. She filled that role throughout the late 1980s.

In Sept. 1991, she started Schiavone Management Company, building the company “from nothing into a $21 million enterprise,” she said. The firm maintained, managed, leased and operated two million square feet of real estate, according to Schiavone’s LinkedIn page. In 2003, the year she and her first husband divorced, she sold the business and moved for a year to Mexico with her son and daughter.

“I call it my magic year,” she said. “It was absolutely wonderful.”

She returned to the U.S., and Connecticut, 21 years ago, settling in Westport, a town she loves for its good schools, open space, amenities such as Compo Beach, access to hiking areas and proximity to New York City.

She also started Schiavone Management Financial Group, advising not-for-profit organizations.

She said she and her running mates are eager to get to work shaping a future “that reflects our shared values and keeps Westport the extraordinary community we all love.”