2001 Candidates

Di Masters
Planning and Zoning

When Di Masters was appointed to fill a vacancy on Ridgefield's Planning and Zoning Commission in 1993, she was eager to get involved in helping shape Ridgefield's future through careful planning. In November 1993, she was elected to a full four-year term, and found herself making major contributions toward building the Town's future while keeping Ridgefield the kind of place we all have come to love. Di has found this service most fulfilling, and successfully ran again in 1997. Her leadership was recognized by the Commission's electing her Chair, and she has served in that capacity the last two years.

Approaching the 2001 election, Di Masters told the Democratic Town Committee that she had once wondered whether 8 years on P&Z would "be enough." But, as she told fellow Democrats, "I simply can't leave now - there's so much more I want to help get done. We've made enormous progress with our Master Plan, in protecting against overdevelopment, increasing our stock of open space... I want to continue if the voters will have me." Among her other contributions have been the Scenic Road Ordinance, the revised Wetland Protection regulations, the "Sugar Hollow Greenway" effort, and the recommendations for improvements to existing Route 7. Di, along with her running mate, long-term P&Z Commissioner Nelson Gelfman, were endorsed unanimously by both the Ridgefield DTC and the Democratic Caucus in July.

Di Masters and her family moved to Ridgefield in 1989. Upon moving to Ridgefield, Di immediately got involved with the community: service on the PTA at Scotland School, and on the Superintendent's Special Education Commitee. She was the Co-Director of Pop Warner Cheerleading, and is on the Board of the League of Women Voters. She is also a member of the National Charity League and a Trustee at Ridgefield's First Congregational Church.

She is married to Paul Masters, and they have seven children. Her husband, Paul, is a partner in an investment firm and a former professional tennis player.

Di Masters' professional background is in international business and finance. She earned her B.S. in international business and finance from Boston University. She then served with the United Nations as a research assistant and spent more than six months in Africa involved in relief work and economic research. Eventually she moved to Morgan Stanley International, then was a Vice President of Phillips and Drew International, and finally was Director of Marketing for Crosby Securities.

With the birth of her twin daughters, she retired from her business career, but Mrs. Masters has never stopped worrying about the people in Africa she met in those early years. "We live on a small, troubled planet," she notes, "and some of the most troublesome problems of the next century will be the problems of Africa. The problems of those hundreds of millions of people will affect America and Ridgefield in ways we cannot imagine today." This concern for the wider community came to the forefront again as she helped organize part of Ridgefield's response to the Sept. 11 attack - by setting up a townwide collection effort for supplies for the rescue workers, through AmeriCares.

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