Dunn Is Encouraged About Brookfield's Emerging Business Center

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD -- Danbury residents still grumble about how eons ago the city built a public library at the intersection of Main and West streets without a parking lot.

The police use chalk to mark tires of cars near the New Milford Village Green to ensure that shoppers aren’t violating the parking limits.

The News-Times of Danbury reported last year that although shoppers in downtown Ridgefield find parking a chore, a majority of those surveyed don’t want to sacrifice its small town charm by building a municipal parking garage.

Brookfield is that rare New England town that doesn’t have a central business district.

But the one that was conceived nearly 30 years ago by former Democratic First Selectman Ken Keller, who later chaired the town’s Economic Development Commission, is about to come to fruition under first-term Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn.

Dunn wants to avoid the parking congestion that plagues nearby municipalities.

The Board of Selectmen is seeking funds from the Board of Finance for “formal appraisals” on parcels in the 198-acre Town Center of Brookfield, near the Four Corners intersection of Federal Road, to build at least 100 parking spaces.

Dunn, who is expected to announce his decision next month on running for a second term, said the plans for emerging business district call for just 27 parking spaces, which is inadequate.

“The time to get the parking is before it gets completely developed,” the first selectman said in an interview. “The costs to buy something that already is developed could be prohibitive.”

Dunn said residents should consider how Town Center of Brookfield might grow.

“We try to build for the next 20 years,” he said. “Probably 100 spaces is not going to be enough for 10 years from now.”

The Brookfield Village project, which has 24,000 square feet of retail space and 72 apartments is well under construction and a streetscape is about to be installed to make it similar to Greenwood Avenue in Bethel.

Dunn said with the housing that has been constructed in the Town Center of Brookfield over the recent years, he believes that most of the customers for the retail outlets will come from an immediate radius.

The first selectman said between the Town Center and some other commercial projects that are under way, Brookfield joins Danbury and Stamford as municipalities that are bucking the trend in a state that has that has been the slowest in New England in recapturing the jobs lost from the 2008 recession.

Dunn, who was elected in 2015 in a landslide over first-term Republican Bill Tinsley, says Brookfield continues to make progress in re-establishing an AAA bond rating, which it had received from Fitch in 2013, shortly before former Democratic First Selectman Bill Davidson completed his four-year tenure.

The rating was downgraded to AA2 with a negative outlook not long after Dunn was informed on his first day in office that there was a $3.3 million budget gap from bonds that were not sold some years earlier.

Dunn said that since then the town has increased its fund balance from 5.2 percent last November to 8.2 percent and should have it at 10 percent within two years, which is the minimum level the rating agencies want for an AAA rating. In Connecticut, only about 14 municipalities have that coveted designation.

The increase in fund balance over the last year has erased the negative outlook from Moody’s Investor Services and Dunn thinks within two years Brookfield could be boosted to at least an AA1 rating, which would lower the cost of borrowing.

The first selectman said the grand list declined by 1.7 percent during the recent property revaluation, but he believes it can recapture its former level within five years.

The school district also experienced budget deficits during Tinsley’s tenure, which resulted in the dismissal of Superintendent Anthony Bivona and Business Manager/Technology Director Art Colley. Last year Colley was placed on three years probation for stealing money from the school district.

Dunn said during the 2015 campaign that John Barile, who had just been hired as the superintendent of schools, and the Board of Education needed to restore integrity.

He said they have taken steps toward accomplishing that by closing their fiscal books each month and establishing an accounting system that is similar to the one that Dunn has established for the municipal government operations.

Dunn, a retired vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase, said the town has taken steps to establish “Business 101” standards, such as having town department heads provide a quote for each purchase of more than $1,000 along with an explanation for why they chose that vendor.

On another topic, the first selectman said the 2.1-mile Still River Greenway, which extends from Silvermine Road to Federal Road, near the Four Corners, has averaged 300 people per weekday and 500 people per day on the weekends since opening last November. Davidson had been a major proponent of the walkway, which he insisted was needed for runners, walkers and bicyclists in a town that has few sidewalks.

Dunn said he has not received “a single challenge” from residents since taking office regarding the Iroquois Gas Transmission system compressor station that was constructed nearly a decade ago on High Meadow Road.

Several residents spoke in opposition to the project, dating to the initial proposal in 2001, fearing that an explosion would harm the neighbors and the students at nearby Whisconier Middle School.

He said that Iroquois, which has funded several civic projects, has “always come to us well ahead of time when they’re doing something.”

Dunn said studies are being done by the Board of Education on possible renovations to Huckleberry Hill Elementary School and the town is funding a study on the needs at the police headquarters on Silvermine Road, which opened in 1988.

The first selectman said there also is a review under way for a new library to replace the facility on Whisconier Road that opened in 1975. He said libraries have changed, noting that they have become community centers where businessmen and students, for example, hold meetings in conference rooms.

Dunn acknowledged that the library supporters have been seeking more space for nearly 20 years, but that the Huckleberry and police headquarters projects will almost certainly have a higher priority with the general electorate as decisions are made over the coming months.

Dunn’s supporters have praised him for mingling with Republicans in a town where there had been divisions after the GOP and A Brookfield Party joined forces and the Democrats had been virtually shut out of the municipal boards and commissions following the 2013 municipal election.

That led to friction. Some residents complained two years ago, for example, that municipal officials weren’t heeding their call for more funding for education.

Dunn noted that this year the Board of Finance voted 6-0 on the proposed municipal budget that it sent to the annual town meeting.

He recalled, “When we took office, people said you have to get rid of [Republican Town Committee Chairman] Greg Dembowski” as project manager for the Brookfield Village project.

“I’m not going to get rid of someone just because they’re a Republican,” said Dunn. “If they’re doing a good job, I don’t care.”

Also, the Board of Selectman retained Danbury attorney Thomas Beecher as the town counsel, even though he had held that position under Tinsley, as well as under former Republican First Selectman Jerry Murphy and former First Selectman Bob Silvaggi, a petitioning candidate.

Dunn said he interviewed several lawyers and felt that Beecher, who also had been the town counsel in New Milford some years ago, was the best choice.

“You just don’t get rid of people when you take office,” the first selectman explained.

“At this level it’s more about people than party,” said Dunn. “Are you going to plow my road? Are you going to pave my road?”