Barely a week after Old Lyme First Selectman Timothy Griswold's squeaker of a win for reelection, he detonated a big bomb, announcing he was withdrawing an application that would have allowed the town Zoning Commission to begin deliberations of a re-zoning plan for the main commercial corridor in town.

Griswold gave flimsy reasons for withdrawing the application, the result of years of work by citizen volunteers, a proposal that he himself had originally submitted for review.

The abrupt withdrawal, made even as the ink on ballots in the recent municipal election had barely dried, occurred hours before the public was scheduled to comment on the proposal before the town Zoning Commission.

He could have made such a dramatic and consequential move a week or two earlier, and given voters a chance to absorb his decision to undermine the years of hard planning work by volunteers.

But no, he waited until the voting was over before he flexed his razor-thin win — by less than 105 votes — to show his hand on a matter so important to voters.

I don't think it takes a political genius to suggest that, had he withdrawn the zoning application before the election, those 105 votes might have gone differently.

Because I am, at the end of the day, a cynical newspaper columnist, I believe the 11th-hour decision on the zoning application was made primarily to accommodate one of the Republican first selectman's most treasured constituents, someone with a financial interest in the issue.

David Kelsey, the former chairman of the Republican Town Committee, who funds the local newspaper the Connecticut Examiner, is also a property owner on Halls Road, the commercial thoroughfare that the zoning proposal addresses.

The first selectman, in his subsequent comments to The Day, even admitted that Kelsey, also a member of the Halls Road Improvements Committee, was one of two individuals who convinced him to withdraw the application, barely a week after voters, unaware of this looming bombshell, narrowly reelected him.

You could almost see Kelsey yanking on the first selectman's leash.

After all, it was the first selectman who submitted the application in the first place, when voters were led to believe the proposal was about to get a fair public hearing before the town's zoning authority.

At issue was a plan, subject to review and changes by the zoning officials, as they could have reviewed it with public input, which would try to remake the central commercial zone from a car-centric series of shopping centers and parking lots to a more walkable village environment, with mixed commercial uses and residential development, condos or apartments.

Town residents were being invited to comment on the ideas, when the first selectman, bowing to pressure from someone with a decided financial interest at stake, snatched that opportunity away.

It's too bad Griswold pulled this stunt so close to the election, so that voters will have to wait almost another two years to have their say on what he did.

In the meantime, I would suggest, he is going to do all he can to accommodate the former chairman of his party's town committee, the person who funds the local newspaper, to make sure that particular constituent's substantial interest in the Hall Road zoning will be protected.

One big lesson for Old Lyme residents, as they must bide their time before the next election, is that they ought to question a newspaper in town that is run by someone pursuing his own substantial political and financial interests.

Even if the newspaper never wrote about the topic at hand — and it did — it has a powerful influence in general over politicians and their decision-making.

Newspapers, as they organize news coverage and moderate community conversations, ought to exercise that powerful authority without prejudice or conflict of interest.

Otherwise, it could be just the propaganda of a rich guy, as he tends to business.

It's sure not journalism.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com