Grimes says ‘sacrifices’ will have to be made in town operating budget

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD – In a town where for the last three municipal election cycles Republican candidates have pointed to a saturation in housing along the emerging central business district, Matt Grimes says voters now tell him that they can’t keep paying higher property taxes.

He commented that they say that inflation has reduced their discretionary spending; they have considerable credit card debt; and/or due to the pause that was established at the start of pandemic, they haven’t been paying their college student loan debt for more than three years and are about to have to resume making those payments this fall.

“Taxes was the biggest issue we heard in the last two and half hours,” he said after canvassing neighborhoods the other day with Harry Shaker.

The tax mill rate went from 25.88 during the last fiscal year to 26.86 for the fiscal year that stated on July 1 – a 3.786 percent increase. Grimes said Brookfield and New Fairfield were the only municipalities in metro Danbury where the first budget proposal was rejected at referendum this spring.

Grimes, an attorney and former Board of Education chairman, is running for the Republican nomination for first selectman in the September 12 primary against first-term incumbent Tara Carr, who has been endorsed by the Republican Vacancy Committee and Republican Town Committee.

She garnered 171 votes at the GOP caucus last month to 126 for Grimes.

Carr was elected with a 218-vote plurality in 2021, the best performance by a Republican candidate for first selectman in Brookfield since 2005.

Shaker, a former longtime Board of Education member, ran for first selectman in 2017, has been serving on the three-members board as an Other Selectman since then and is now seeking that seat on Grimes’ ticket.

This is the first Republican primary for first selectman in Brookfield since 2003.

Grimes said the state of Connecticut lowered its income tax rates for the middle and lower classes this year, but “Brookfield is not cutting taxes. Voters are concerned. They know that Brookfield has a lot of debt.”

The town is still paying for renovations to Brookfield High School that were approved at referendum in 2003 and the new Candlewood Lake Elementary School, which was approved at referendum in 2019 and will open later this year. It also recently approved money for an upgraded communications system for first responders.

Grimes has pledged, if elected, to offer a plan to expand the current police facilities on Silvermine Road and get it to a referendum vote in the November 2024 presidential election. He has said that issue has been discussed for six years without a plan being presented to the voters.

Considering all of that, how do you lower the rate of increase in the tax mill rate?

“We will have to make sacrifices in the operating budget even if the police funding doesn’t pass,” remarked Grimes in an interview with Patch.com. “We will probably have to lower the rate of increase on the operating side.”

Grimes, who formerly served as the town attorney in New Milford, said that Pete Bass, the mayor there, faced high debt service and declining state assistance and two months after he took office in late 2017 he laid off nine municipal employees.

Regarding the increase in housing in the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center, Grimes told Patch.com in March that he believes Brookfield is still the same town he grew up in but it has just been rearranged. He noted in a more recent interview that the housing also has led to more commercial development.

Steve Dunn, the former first selectman who is again the Democratic nominee for that office this year, said in 2021 that he believed that commercial development, which then stood at 16 percent of the grand list, could increase in five years to 20 percent with further development at Brookfield Town Center and at Berkshire Corporate Park.

Remarked Grimes, “That is a laudable goal.”

He is canvassing Republican households on Dean and Pocono roads with Mary Borges, who is running for town clerk on Grimes’ ticket.

One woman says she doesn’t have any questions about municipal issues and Grimes hands her a campaign flier and Post-It note with his mobile phone number and invites her to call him if she ever wants to discuss anything.

Carr has been lauded for frequently posting pertinent information on municipal issues on social media and scheduling Saturday morning sessions once a month at a local restaurant where the three selectmen can speak informally with residents.

Grimes said, “It is not enough. There isn’t enough citizen engagement. I spoke to a woman earlier today who had lived in Brookfield since 2017 and she didn’t know that she could vote against tax increases by participating in the budget referendum each May.”

He said, if elected, he would present a weekly five-minute video on YouTube discussing municipal issues and hold an annual State of the Town address each February.

He said that he has a sub-group of residents at Candlewood Shores that is supporting his campaign. He said that he has told them that he will "join that neighborhood's residents in fighting efforts to put sewers there."

Grimes said he also told them that he will resume a practice that was performed under Republican former First Selectman Jerry Murphy and Democratic former First Selectman Bill Davidson. He said that would be that as first selectman, he would not encourage them to go before the Board of Assessment Appeals to appeal their property tax assessment but he would inform them of how they could best proceed with doing that.

On another topic, Grimes said he is concerned about the reduction in athletic fields in town. Sports groups have complained for decades that there are not enough of them.

Commercial development led to the elimination of the field in the cornfield at Junction Road and the construction of the new school has further reduced the inventory.

Shaker, a longtime youth sports coach, said in a phone interview with Patch.com that the town should consider purchasing a parcel and designating it for fields.

Grimes said he also wants to establish a municipal roads committee, similar to the panel that was added about five years ago in New Milford. He said that the purchasing authorities would ultimately make the decisions, but that a seven-member committee can provide a “permanent structure” since public works directors and first selectmen come and go.

Grimes said his Team Brookfield ticket is similar to the Republicans United For Brookfield coalition that Murphy led to victory 20 years ago. Shaker, for example, started his career in public office while running on that ticket.

Remarked Grimes, “More than half of the people on our ticket I had not met before I started running for first selectman.”

Shaker added, “It is a real nice blend of seasoned people, people who have children in the schools, and we also have a lot of newer, younger people, who are in their 30s and 40s, some even in their 20s.”

During an interview in the parking lot to the Still River Greenway on Silvermine Road, one gets the impression that this is similar to what the Washington sportswriters encountered 40 years ago when Joe Theismann was called “The Quote Man.”

Grimes offers statistics and anecdotes. He can quickly fill up a notebook.

He has been involved in municipal elections since at least 1997 when as a recent graduate of Brookfield High School he managed his grandfather, Fred Standt, to victory for the Republican nomination for first selectman at the party caucus. Standt later lost to incumbent Republican First Selectman Bonnie Smith in the primary and general election.

Grimes was elected in 2001 to the Brookfield Board of Education at age 22 and became its chairman at age 24. Some observers thought that he was sometimes abrupt with residents speaking before that body.

Shaker said that is no longer an issue.

“If you are going to be beneficial to the town, you’re going to have to grow as an individual, and grow in patience, you have to grow in how you deal in situations, and I have seen that with Matt,” he commented.

What did Grimes learn at the University of Richmond, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, that has helped him in his career in government?

He graduated from the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, where he was taught by leaders from business, the United Nations, entertainment and government.

“It is something that I have taken with me through the years,” Grimes commented.

He said after embarking on a career in business, he decided to become an attorney, and former state House Speaker Fran Collins, a former longtime Brookfield resident, recommended the University of Connecticut Law School, his alma mater.

Grimes said he attended classes at night and met a number of classmates who also had started careers after college before entering law school.

“Every day I’m in touch with UConn Law classmates,” he remarked. “We bounce legal things off of each other.”

Some of them attended his campaign kick-off last March.

Grimes, a devoted Mets fan, is asked: “Who was the greatest switch-hitter of all time: Mickey Mantle or Pete Rose?

He says it would have to be Rose, who was “Charlie Hustle” and would even “dive into first base” after a Base on Balls.

It was neither: It was Eddie Murray.

Said Grimes: “Did he play his whole career in Baltimore?”

Someone says, “He played for the Mets in 1992 and 1993.”

Apparently, Grimes has been spending too much time canvassing and not enough time at Citi Field.

Resources:

Interview with Matt Grimes, Patch.com, Saturday, August 12, 2023.

Phone interview with Harry Shaker, Patch.com, Tuesday, August 15, 2023.

E-mail message from Matt Grimes, Patch.com, Tuesday, August 15, 2023.

https://patch.com/connecticut/...