Politics & Government
Coelho insists Republican economic plan can help combat inflation
Faces Democratic incumbent Kushner in 24th District state Senate campaign
By Scott Benjamin
DANBURY – Republican Michelle Coelho says that she came to Danbury 20 years ago because it “is a safe, affordable city.”
It generates more sales tax revenue than any of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities and, per capita, ranks first in the state in restaurants. It also has an AAA bond rating.
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Danbury Economic Development Director Shay Nagarsheth told Patch.com earlier this year: “We led the state in business recovery out of COVID.”
The News-Times of Danbury has reported that Republican former Mayor Mark Boughton announced in 2019 that the crime rate in the city had declined 16 percent from the previous year.
Find out what's happening in Brookfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Economist Donald Klepper-Smith of DataCore Partners, who is a consultant to the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce, told Patch.com this spring that the city’s biggest attraction is that it is “affordable.”
However, nationally inflation is at its highest level since Fernando Valenzuela won his Cy Young.
Coelho told Patch.com in an interview that due to Democratic economic policies she fears that in the near future people will “no longer be able to afford to live in Danbury.”
“How are you going to heat your homes?” remarked Coelho, who was the top vote-getter last November in the elections for Board of Education seats in the Hat City, even though she was seeking her first term.
She will face two-term Democratic incumbent Julie Kushner of Danbury in the November 8 election in the 24th state Senate District, which includes all of the Hat City, as well as parts of Ridgefield and New Fairfield.
Coelho said that if money is available from Connecticut’s portion of the $1.9 trillion federal American Rescue Plan, funding should go to “lower income and the middle class” this winter to help pay their heating bills.
“I believe that it is not rosy,” Coelho said of the current status of the state and national economies.
She has embraced the recent proposals from Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski of Madison and GOP legislators to “get rid of some of the tax burden.”
State Sen. Eric Berthel (R-32) of Watertown recently told Patch.com that Connecticut has the highest cost of living in the country.
Coelho said she supports lowering the income tax rate for the lower-and middle- class earners; reducing property taxes; lowering the sales tax from 6.35 to 5.99 percent; and lowering or eliminating the diesel and truck taxes.
She said she also supports Stefanowski’s plan to audit each state agency.
“We do it in our homes,” Coelho said regarding how families review their costs.
She is running in a diverse district.
According to Wikipedia.org, Ridgefield is the ninth wealthiest municipality in Connecticut, New Fairfield ranks 71st and Danbury, which has 87,642 people – about 7,000 more than a decade ago - is ranked 133rd.
Some of the Democratic candidates for mayor in recent elections have cited data that Danbury ranks last in the state in per pupil funding in the public schools.
Coelho, who is a member of the Board of Education’s Curriculum Committee, said the figure is misleading, since it depends on how various figures are computed.
She said the schools provide quality education, and there need to be more of them.
Coelho noted that the Freshmen Academy that opened at Danbury High School about five years ago filled up quickly.
She praised Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito, a Republican, for having the foresight to get the 1,400-student Career Academy approved this last June at referendum when it became plausible to utilize the former building for Cartus, one of the city’s largest employers.
However, Coelho insisted that “more needs to be done” with a growing student enrollment.
On a related topic, regarding the Latino vote in the upcoming election, Danbury town clerk and former state Rep. Jan Giegler, a Republican, said, “I think it is of benefit for Michelle [who is a first generation Cuban American] since she has been a supporter of the charter schools in Danbury, which I think is important to the Latin community.”
The News-Times of Danbury has reported that Kushner has opposed the proposed Prospect Charter School and instead supports the Open Choice program that would allow 50 students from Danbury to attend school in neighboring municipalities.
On other issues, Coelho said the state needs to be more "aggressive" in paying down its unfunded liabilities debt.
Reportedly, the state structurally under-funded the pensions every year from 1939 through 2010.
They have been fully funded each year since then and partly as a result of the 2017 bipartisan budget agreement in which capital gains money funneled toward paying them, the debt has declined over recent years.
In 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported that Rhode Island’s then-state Treasurer Gina Raimondo – now the U.S. Commerce secretary - had lobbied the state employee collective bargaining units for concessions since the pension obligations were only 48 percent funded, which was unsustainable for the future.
The state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness pegged it at 29 percent in its March 2018 report. The 2021 Truth In Accounting report placed it at 43 percent – well below the 80 percent threshold that National Public Radio reported in 2012 is considered “good.”
On another topic, Stefanowski has called for a repeal of the 1989 state Affordable Housing Appeals Act, saying that it doesn’t work.
Under the law, developers can circumvent local zoning regulations if the municipality doesn’t meet the state’s 10 percent threshold of affordable housing.
CT News Junkie columnist Terry Cowgill recently wrote that only 31 of the 169 municipalities in Connecticut meet that threshold.
Remarked Coelho, “I don’t agree with the legislation. We have to be in control locally.”
She said that there are “beautiful, historic homes that could be impacted by these decisions” in the 24th District.
Danbury exceeds the 10 percent threshold. Ridgefield and New Fairfield are not at 10 percent.
In a survey released in September by the Fairfield County Center for Housing Opportunity Danbury scored 3.5 on housing opportunities out of possible score of five. Stamford ranked first in the region with a tally of 4.0.
Ridgefield was not ranked in the survey and New Fairfield had a score of 1, tying it for the lowest in the region.
Coelho who spent about 25 years as a design construction project manager – working with the buyers, contractors and attorneys on construction projects.
“We need to find a way to accommodate the people who need affordable housing,” she said.
“With the exodus from New York into Connecticut [since the pandemic] the prices are exploding,” Coelho commented.
If there is so little interest in adding affordable housing, after 33 years why hasn’t the General Assembly abolished it by now?
“Because it is the right thing to do,” said state Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury, who was initially elected to the state House in 1988, just months before the Affordable Housing Appeals Act was established.
He added, “Big and small businesses that are looking to expand or move into Connecticut don’t ask about taxes. They ask about whether there is enough housing for the people I hire to live nearby. The answer is too often, ‘No.’ “
Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons, a Democrat, told Patch.com last year that nearly 30 percent of her city’s commercial space is vacant.
“The companies are not going to use office space as much as they have,” she added. “It’s going to be difficult to fill the spaces unless we get creative.” She said the options should include housing.
“In some communities that might be a very interesting solution,” Coelho commented. “If that is feasible with the parking and the zoning that is there, we can promote that.”
She said the state should also devote more money to infrastructure improvements, including repairing its existing roads, which were cited in a 2017 national engineering report as being the worst in the 50 states.
The Republicans held the seat fin the 24th District for 24 years under three different senators – Mark Nielsen, David Cappiello and Michael McLachlan, all of Danbury. This was the state Senate district that Democratic former U.S. Rep. Jim Maloney of Danbury held for eight years in the late 1980s and early 1990s before Nielsen’s election.
Kushner’s victory with about 54 percent of the vote four years ago was in contrast to eight years ago, when there was no Democratic candidate and McLachlan annexed more than 86 percent of the vote against Working Families candidate Theodore Feng of New Fairfield.
Danbury, the state’s seventh largest city remains the anchor in the 24th District.
Following the recent reapportionment, Sherman and the part of Bethel that had been in the district have been moved elsewhere. The section of New Fairfield has become smaller and the district has added a section of Ridgefield, a town with a Republican heritage, but that has elected Democrat Rudy Marconi as first selectman since 1999.
Godfrey said that following the 2000 reapportionment the district became more Republican.
However, he said after the most recent alterations, “It is no longer a Republican-leaning district. It is a toss-up district.”
It was one of three in Fairfield County that flipped from Republican to Democrat in 2018 – the others being t he 36th District in the Greenwich area and the 26th District, which is largely based in the Wilton-Westport area.
Gary Rose, the chairman of the Government Department at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, has told Patch.com that, among other things, in the 2018 election suburban women, who generally had been evenly split in voting for the two major parties’ candidates, trended more Democrat due to Republican former President Donald Trump.
Godfrey said, “The Wall Street Republicans wanted nothing to do with Trump’s social programs and attitude, so they started voting Democratic.”
In a phone interview with Patch.com, former Danbury City Council member Andrew Wetmore, a Republican, said, “The Democrats did a very good job four years ago and two years ago with getting new people engaged who were upset with Donald Trump. I think they are going to have a harder time with that this year. There isn’t the same passion, because Trump is not on the ballot.”
Giegler said, “I think sometimes it is just the filtering down of what happens nationally.”
“In a couple of my campaigns I think the Obama factor played a part in it,” she said regarding the Democratic former president.
In a profile last year on the Danbury mayor’s race, CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas wrote that “one-third of Danbury is foreign-born” and 50 languages are spoken at Danbury High School.
Coelho said that the Republicans “should be picking up most of Latino vote. We’re about hard work and transparency.”
Wetmore, who is the campaign manager for state Rep. Stephen Harding’s bid in the neighboring 30th state Senate District, commented, “Michelle is a strong advocate for freedom and individual rights.”
What about the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 vote in June on the Dobbs v. Jackson case, which has left the decision abortion up to the states instead of the federal government?
For example, Eva Bermudez Zimmerman of New Milford, the Democratic candidate in the neighboring 30th District state Senate race, has said the decision has changed the conversations that he has had with voters.
Coelho commented, “I haven’t had that many questions” about the decision.
She added that Connecticut has long been “codified” regarding abortion access.
Coelho and her husband live in Danbury with three children, ranging in age from 12 to 24.
She initially attended Northeastern University in Boston and then transferred and earned her degree at the New York Institute of Technology.
Coelho praised Northeastern University’s Cooperative Education five-year work-study program in which in the second through the fifth year the students alternate semesters between conventional classroom study and a work-study position in their prospective career field.
“It was a great program because, among other things, you got to know whether you would like a certain profession,” Coelho commented.
Which political figures does she most admire?
“Condoleezza Rice,” Coelho said, referring to the Secretary of State under Republican former President George W. Bush.
“She is very intelligent and very well-rounded,” she said.
Esposito also is on Coelho’s list.
“He is a man of the people,” she explained. “He’s always looking to connect and engage.”
Resources:
https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Proposed-Danbury-charter-school-won-t-open-in-16846036.php
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/simmons-focuses-job-creation-city-works
https://www.npr.org/2012/09/24/161696119/u-s-pensions-in-crisis-but-not-in-rhode-island
https://ctmirror.org/2022/09/1...
https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Second-Danbury-school-board-member-Michelle-17034591.php
Michelle Coelho, interview, Patch.com, September 24, 2022.
Andrew Wetmore, phone interview, Patch.com, September 30, 2022.
Jan Giegler, phone interview, Patch.com, October 4, 2022.
Bob Godfrey, phone interview, Patch.com, October 3, 2022.
https://patch.com/connecticut/...
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/shu-professor-insists-state-should-reduce-individual-taxes
