Brookfield Candidate Profile: Bill Tinsley

Written by Scott Benjamin

Brookfield First Selectman Bill Tinsley says if he is elected to a second term he wants to ensure that there are more families with school-aged children in town, that facilities for students in kindergarten through fifth grade get renovated and that the Board of Education conducts a thorough review of how instruction is delivered.

Tinsley, who recently was re-nominated at the Republican caucus, said the town is starting to build housing in the 198-acre Town District Center, near the Four Corners intersection of Federal Road. He wishes to address the decline in 25- to 45-year-old residents, many of whom have children.

“I don’t want us to face the decision of closing a school,” said Tinsley, noting that enrollment in the school district has gone from 3,150 students about eight years ago to less than 2,700 now. He said It is projected it will fall to 2,400 in two years.

New Milford, for example, recently closed the venerable John Pettibone School because of declining enrollment.

“We need affordable housing, but the amount of housing in the Town District Center is more than I think had been envisioned,” said Brookfield Democratic Town Committee Chairman Ray DiStpehan, a former chairman of the Board of Education.

However, Tinsley insists bold steps are needed.

“We need to have a healthy demographic with teeming activity,” he said.

Tinsley also said his goal for the families with elementary school children will be sending them to renovated facilities in the foreseeable future.

Tinsley said his major construction priority would be addressing the capital needs at Center Elementary School, one of the oldest school buildings in the state, and Huckleberry Hill Elementary School, both of which need renovations.

He said he would be willing to consider moving the fifth grade out of Whisconier Middle School (WMS) and into Huckleberry, as former Superintendent of Schools John Goetz had recommended shortly before he retired in 2007. Goetz said the fifth grade students are better suited for an elementary school. WMS had a major expansion completed in 2001.

Tinsley also expects there will be major changes in the Board of Education in this November’s election, where as many as five new members could be elected to the seven-member body.

“I look forward to a new school board,” he said.

He anticipates that Bob Belden, a former chairman of the board of the YMCA of Western Connecticut and former vice chairman of the Brookfield Board of Finance, will be elected. He hopes Belden becomes the chairman after the municipal election.

“He’s creative and articulate,” Tinsley said.

The first selectman said the 2.5 percent increase in school spending for the current fiscal year was more than adequate for the current fiscal year. He noted that he couldn’t support the Board of Education’s proposed budget from last January, which included a six percent spending increase and “17 more headcount” in employees at a time when enrollment is declining.

Brookfield Republican Town Committee Chairman Matt Grimes said retired financial securities executive Steve Dunn, the Democratic candidate for first selectman, supports policies that would noticeably increase taxes, a charge that Dunn has denied.

Tinsley, who was vice chairman of the Board of Education during part of his service from 1995 to 1998, said taxpayers over the recent years have been supportive of the schools.

The first selectman said that class sizes and the number of students per full-time school district employee are lower than ever. Brookfield High School (BHS) started providing the freshman class with iPads in 2011 and now every student at the school has one. More BHS students are going to highly-rated colleges and are taking advanced placement classes than ever before. Spanish is now taught in all 13 grades and the school district was among the first in the metro Danbury area to adopt full-day kindergarten.

However, nearly 1,000 residents signed a petition last winter to restore more funds to the schools. Thomas Beecher, the town attorney, ruled after it was submitted that it didn’t conform to the appropriate standards in the town charter. Town Clerk Joan Locke had provided him with a copy of the petition before it was circulated by the residents.

Tinsley said he hopes that the Board of Education will review, among other things, the 180-day academic year.

In 2010 Democratic President Barack Obama called for a 197-day academic year so that the United States would remain competitive with other developed countries.

Tinsley also wants to test the model of five and a half hours or instruction a day and whether technology could be better utilized.

Danbury Republican Mayor Mark Boughton has said some of the “most exciting and fascinating” learning that he has seen has been in Connecticut’s charter schools, which usually have a longer school day, hold classes on Saturday and where the principal maintains a classroom and teaches one class each day.

Boughton, who taught Social Studies for 14 years at Danbury High School, has said that unfortunately whenever anyone “tries to break the mold, the Connecticut Education Association, the state bargaining unit for public school teachers, “steps in and says ‘we can’t have this.’ ”

Tinsley said municipal and school officials often talk about spending money for education, but “we never get to the role and scope” of instruction.

Republican Selectman Marty Flynn, who is again Tinsley’s running mate this fall, said the current administration has made a compelling case for re-election by controlling spending and expanding the local economy.

“I think that people like results, and we’ve delivered,” Tinsley said. “People have seen that for once in this town, we have attacked our expenses and controlled property taxes, and nobody in this town has seen that in 25 years. I would note that it has been balanced. We’ve controlled taxes and have still been able to meet our needs.”

However, Dunn said Tinsley borrowed for line items that should have been included in the current $60.5 million budget.

“It was done as a political maneuver to get to a zero tax increase,” DiStephan added.

“They have no idea what they’re talking about,” Tinsley declared. “We’re replacing a couple of highway trucks that we had for 20 years. That doesn’t sound like an operating expense to me. They’ve also making an assumption that when we borrow money we’re going to do it for 20 years. That may have been what they’ve don’t in the past, but we’re going to have a blend of borrowing as we go out.”

“We have a $60.5 million budget with $6.7 million for capital expenses,” the first selectman explained. “They’re talking out $10,000 here and $20,000 there. It’s all poppycock.”

Tinsley said “the converse was true” when he took office and there was no money in the operating budget for repaving roads, because the town had been spending $10 million from a bond referendum that had been approved in April 2010.

However, former Democratic Selectman Howard Lasser, Tinsley’s opponent in the 2013 election, said there was enough money in reserve that the town didn’t need to seek a referendum this last May to bond for road repaving.

Regarding other municipal issues, Tinsley said “half of my time in office has been spent” addressing a $1.2 million shortfall in the education budget that had occurred under the previous administration. Former schools business manager Art Colley faced criminal charges and former Superintendent of Schools Anthony Bivona was dismissed by the Board of Education.

The first selectman said that despite that obstacle, the town has maintained its AAA bond rating, which dates to October 2013, about two months before former First Selectman Bill Davidson left office. That is the highest rating possible, and one that is held by only a handful of municipalities in Connecticut.

Tinsley said that Brookfield has gone through two bond reviews since he took office in December 2013.

For nearly 20 years, municipal officials have tried to maintain at least a seven percent fund balance, which is one of the factors that the rating agencies review.

Tinsley said the payment for the education shortfall initially lowered the fund balance to 5.6 percent and it is currently at slightly more than 7 percent. The first selectman said Brookfield’s current fund balance is probably one of lowest among the Connecticut municipalities that have an AAA bond rating.

He projects that a year from now it will be at 8 percent and he wants to eventually boost it to 10 percent.

Tinsley said Brookfield has been able to maintain its AAA rating because it has a “very high” tax collection rate and a grand list that increased more than in any municipality in the metro Danbury area during the last year.

His primary economic focus has been the Town District Center, which was conceived nearly 30 years ago by Democratic First Selectman Ken Keller.

Tinsley said that 72 housing units have been built in the 198-acre zone. He said that altogether 560 units have been applied for and 380 of those units have been approved by the land-use boards. He said the plans will provide population density that will generate customers for the retail outlets in the district and the housing needed for younger families.

He said construction for new retail outlets is planned in the near future for the central part of the district and that he believes there will be greater interest in commercial development in the Town District Center if the economy continues to improve.

Tinsley said he continues to have talks with owners of the Berkshire Corporate Park about further construction on the 75-acre parcel on the Brookfield portion. Less than two years ago Eastern Financial opened a call center on a portion of that land.

Former Republican First Selectman Jerry Murphy has said that parcel is an opportune area for economic expansion in a part of town that would have little impact on traffic congestion.

Tinsley also said he hopes that there will be more economic activity along Vail Road in the foreseeable future.

The first selectman said the future of the 37-acre corn field on Junction Road will largely be determined by the strength of the economy, noting for example that the nearby Barnbeck Place housing has been 10 years in the making.

The corn field is approved for commercial development. He acknowledged that there have long been concerns among neighbors about excessive traffic, but that any plan would have to be approved by the state Department of Transportation.

Regarding other potential municipal projects, Tinsley said if a new library/community center is built it should be in the Town District Center, where it would help attract more economic activity to that area.

The current library on Whisconier Road opened in 1975 and only has 38 parking spaces. Library officials have been seeking to get a larger facility since at least 1999.

Tinsley said libraries over the recent years have, as a result of the Internet, become less of a center for research and greater emphasis has been placed on community programs.

Tinsley said he hopes the library officials will embark on a major fundraising campaign to offset some of the costs for a proposed new facility.

During his tenure as chairman of the Board of Finance and as vice chairman of the Board of Education, Tinsley has emphasized the need to improve productivity.

The first selectman said that goal continues. He said, for example, he meets with the land-use officers twice a month to review pending and new applications and he has been able to install a financial model that has upgraded the procurement and authorization of municipal purchases. He said the town also is developing more online functions for land-use applicants.

Just hours following Tinsley’s 2013 victory, it was disclosed that he was facing an embezzlement charge from work he had done as a cashier at a liquor store in Ludlow, Vermont. A short time later he pled no contest and the charge has since been removed from his record, according to The News-Times of Danbury.

Tinsley has said the charge was “false” and resulted from a misunderstanding with the liquor store owner, according to The News-Times. It also was disclosed shortly after the election that Tinsley had filed for bankruptcy.

“Those things are being discussed less and less as people see what we have accomplished,” said Flynn.

“It is an issue of trust,” DiStephen said regarding Tinsley. “He withheld information from the voters.”

Tinsley said residents he has spoken with have supported the bifurcated budget that was approved as a charter revision last year and has the town government services and education components considered separately at referendum. He said people “like to have choices” and there is more information available for the Board of Finance to review after a budget is defeated.

Even though he is the incumbent, Tinsley said he plans to visit more homes this year than during his initial campaign for first selectman in 2009, when he lost to Davidson by 288 votes in a three-way race, and in 2013, when he defeated Lasser by 81 votes.