Butow canvasses neighborhoods as GOP tries to recapture Town Hall

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – Mel Butow, the Republican candidate for first selectman, says as he canvasses neighborhoods in this northern Fairfield County suburb the dominant topics are taxes, potential high-density housing and questions about why new commercial spaces are being built when existing storefronts are empty.

“Excessive increases in town’s administrative costs must be curtailed,” states a campaign flier that Butow, a member of the Economic Development Commission, distributes to voters.

The $70 million operating budget for the current fiscal year - $44 million for education and $26 million for the school district – represented a 5.17 percent increase in spending and a 2.87 percent tax increase. A $3.5 million bonding package also was approved at referendum this last May.

Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn, who is seeking a third term in the November 5 election, told Brookfield Patch this spring that 29 percent of the spending increase was due to reduced state assistance. He said the state has lowered its aid during each of the four years that he has been office.

Dunn has said that through the years Brookfield voters usually will support a tax increase of three percent or less.

However, while going door-to-door with voters on Oakcrest Drive, Selectman Harry Shaker, who was the Republican nominee for first selectman two years ago and served for 13 years on the Board of Education, said that after nearly two years as a selectman he can see “areas where we could reallocate money and lower overall spending.”

“I am not going to say there will be no tax increase,” Butow said in an interview. “I’m not going to be like George [H.W.] Bush years ago [at the 1988 Republican National Convention] and say no new taxes.”

However, Butow, who worked in financial management for 40 years, said he believes the increase in the mill rate could be lower than in the recent years.

“Voters I speak with are concerned about the way the current administration is spending money,” said Butow while wearing a red Butow/Shaker 2019 cap.

Danbury, for example, under Republican Mayor Mark Boughton, had no increase in the mill rate for the current fiscal year.

Resident Steve Sebestyen, who has lived in Brookfield for 18 years, said, the town needs to be “careful in how they spend money”

“It’s a tough balance between economic development and keeping a rural feel,” he said.

John Pistone, who has made bids for the seat in the Fifth Congressional District as an independent candidate, said “taxes” are his chief concern.

Michael Went, who has lived in Brookfield for 15 years, said he wonders why new commercial space is being built while current offices and storefronts are unoccupied.

Butow said some residents have questions about the new, large commercial space on Federal Road, across the BMW dealership, that has yet to be occupied.

Town Treasurer John Lucas, a Democrat who is seeking a second term this fall, said in a recent interview that Brookfield had a 1.49 percent increase in its grand list over the last year.

Dunn has said that should expand in the coming years as Branson Ultrasonics, now located in Danbury, builds a 140,000-square-foot facility in Berkshire Corporate Park, a medical building now under construction at the corn field on Junction Road is completed and the emerging 198-acre Town Center of Brookfield near the Four Corners intersection of Federal Road is fully developed.

Dunn has said that Brookfield could potentiall have a vibrant central business district similar to those in Darien and West Hartford.

Butow, who moved to town about five and a half years ago from Long Island, said voters are also voicing concern about additional high density housing in Brookfield and what might happen when the current moratorium on affordable housing through the state, which restricts to the area near the Town Center of Brookfield, expires in 2021.

Dunn and state Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield have said they will seek to extend the moratorium until 2025.

Two years ago, Shaker said that was the most prominent issue as he spoke with voters who were concerned about maintaining “the character” of the town.

Residents have been concerned that affordable housing in residential neighborhoods and lower property values.

In a flier, Butow stated, “For every new household and business proposed there is a price tag and a quality of life issue that I will not ignore.”

Dunn has captured nearly two-thirds of the votes in each of the last two municipal elections and the Democrats took control of the municipal boards and commissions following the 2017 balloting.

He said in 2015, when he initially sought the office, that there was “something wrong” in town since the recently-formed A Brookfield Party was an arm of the Republican Party and had resulted in dissension from voters who felt their voices weren’t being recognized.

Earlier this year, Dunn told Brookfield Patch that he thought that the rancor among voters “is about completely gone.”

“We’ve taken the partisan politics out of running the town,” he added.

Shaker, who is running for one of the two other selectmen seats on the three-member board, said in an interview that municipal boards and commissions have become “less contentious” over the last two years.

For 10 consecutive elections between 1987 and 2005, the Republican nominee was elected first selectman in town. Since then, over the last six elections, the Republican nominee has won only once – with Bill Tinsley’s 81-vote triumph in 2013.

However, Brookfield, which is the anchor in the 107^th state House District, has helped elect Republicans to that seat in every election since 1976. Harding captured more than 59 percent of the vote in the district, which also includes the Stony Hill section of Bethel and a slice of northern Danbury, last November.

The GOP has 4,003 registered members in town, according to 2018 Secretary of the State figures, while there are only 2,921 Democrats and 260 residents belonging to minor parties.

However, the biggest chunk of residents are the 5,177 unaffiliated voters.

Butow said he and other GOP candidates began touring neighborhoods on Saturdays shortly before Labor Day. He said that schedule will likely increase over the coming weeks. The local Republicans also have an active social media operation.

He said the canvassing has been educational and emotionally rewarding.

Plus, some of residents have offered to post his lawn signs outside their homes.