Politics & Government
A millennial makes his case
Unlike many members of his generation, Republican candidate for first selectman Karl Hinger has embraced municipal issues
By Scott Benjamin
BROOKFIELD – It is nearly seven months since he formally announced that at age 30, he would seek a job with an annual salary of $126,326 and only a two-year guaranteed contract – a position that often attracts candidates who have finished their business careers and have grown children.
Out of seven first selectmen over the last 26 years, only Marty Foncello in 1999 and Tara Carr in 2021 were still in their 40s when they ascended to become the town’s top municipal elected official.
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As the Brookfield Republican Town Committee fund-raiser starts there is a violent thunderstorm – the kind where you need an umbrella to avoid looking like the surfer at Cocoa Beach who just wiped out while navigating a 10-foot wave.
No problem. This is an indoor event.
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Bowling is noisy and populist.
Karl Hinger asks a visiting reporter if he will be able to hear him over the sound of pins colliding from the 7-10 splits.
Forty years ago when this bowling center was known as the Brookfield Lanes, Nelson Burton Jr.- who was not only a celebrated champion on the Pro Bowlers Association (PBA) tour but the color commentator for ABC’s Saturday afternoon telecasts, was one of a handful of PBA competitors who rolled an exhibition match.
At that time, the ABC package was regularly drawing more viewers each winter than the regular season college basketball games.
Hinger the GOP candidate for first selectman, praised the Brookfield Republican Town Committee for sponsoring an afternoon of bowling at Strikers on Federal Road.
“You have to reach out to all people. It is great for families” he says as bowlers from elementary school to adults aimed for the 1-3 pocket.
If bowling captured the Nielsen ratings can Hinger get elected in a town in which the Democrats have garnered six of the last eight elections for first selectman?
Between frames, Liam Enea, an alternate on the Zoning Board of Appeals who is running this fall for a regular seat on that board, says he is optimistic that Hinger can annex a cross-section of Brookfield.
He said that “overdevelopment,” particularly with the surge in multi-family housing in the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center central business district, is a prime issue. Enea explained that Hinger can address it from his experience of serving nearly four years on the Zoning Board of Appeals, where he is now the vice chairman.
Republican former longtime selectman and Board of Education member Harry Shaker said in a phone interview, “People may only think that he has had a little less than four year on the Zoning Board of Appeals, but Karl is well-prepared and he has surrounded himself with people who would make him a very viable first selectman.”
Within walking distance of Strikers is Emporium Plaza, which has been under construction since June 2021 and within weeks will be the home of the Food Emporium supermarket, which should generate more traffic to Brookfield Town Center.
Some time ago, the Board of Selectmen, on a 2-1 vote, approved tax incentives for Emporium Plaza since it is providing 38 public parking spaces that can be utilized by, among others, those walking and running along the nearby the Still River Greenway.
First Selectman Steve Dunn, a Democrat and Hinger’s opponent in the November 4 election, voted for the tax incentives.
About a decade ago under Republican First Selectman Bill Tinsley, the board approved tax incentives for the development of the retail and housing at Brookfield Village, which was the first major project in Brookfield Town Center.
Hinger commented, “[Tax incentives] can be useful in certain situations.”
“I’m not sure they were needed” in these instances, he added in an interview with Patch.com.
“I think they jumped to that a little bit too quickly,” remarked Hinger on the tax incentives for Emporium Plaza. “The Town Center has become very profitable to developers.”
Over the last 12 years, the 75 acres in Brookfield’s portion of Berkshire Corporate Park has added its first two corporate tenants.
Said Hinger, “Berkshire Corporate Park is where you could see some more development. It could provide some tax benefits for the town.”
He said that corporate expansion there would not create much additional traffic congestion to the southern corridor of Federal Road - the most traveled part of Brookfield. The entrance to Berkshire Corporate Park is just over the border in Danbury.
As of September 4, there were 3,801 Republican. 3,068 Democratic. 5,064 unaffiliated and 211 minor party voters in Brookfield.
Last fall, state Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding Jr. (R-30) and Foncello, the state representative from the 107th state House District, were re-elected and GOP President Donald Trump carried the town.
Brookfield Republican Vacancy Committee Chairman Stephen Harding Sr. has said that Dunn has not engaged enough with the local GOP, suggesting that he even should have spoken to a Republican Town Committee meeting.
If Hinger is elected, would he within six months of taking office come before the Brookfield Democratic Town Committee?
“I think so,” he said.
“You won’t agree with them on everything, but why would you want to exclude them,” commented Hinger. “In a municipal government, there is not a Republican or Democratic way to plow the roads.”
In a 2003 speech, Democratic former President Bill Clinton said that if voters 30 and under voted at the same rate as those 55 and older, you would have a different U.S. Congress.
“Absolutely,” said Hinger.
A Harvard Institute of Politics poll from this spring reported that “more than 4 in 10 young Americans under 30 say they’re barely getting by financially while just 16 percent report doing well or very well. Fewer than half feel a sense of community, with only 17 percent reporting deep social connection.”
Hinger noted that the younger millennials, such as himself, and the members of Generation Z have come of age during the Great Recession and the pandemic. That is in contrast to the Great Moderation, where between 1982 and 2008 there were only two brief recessions that were relatively mild.
“They feel that they haven’t been listened to, so they often have a defeatist or depressed attitude about politics,” he said of the younger generation. “However, this is not a new phenomenon that younger voters are not interested.”
“If you’re in your 20s you are busy starting a family, staring a career,” Hinger explained.
“This has been a problem forever,” he remarked. “Younger voters don’t have time to think about what their local Zoning Board is doing.”
He commented that during the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, Bernie Sanders “was trying to talk to those 20-year-olds that were unhappy with the state of the world. They loved him online, but they didn’t go to the polls.”
What about Congress taking action to lower the drinking age from 21 – where it has been since 1984 – to 18?
Author Scott Johnston wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal that since then, the rate of drunk-driving deaths has dropped almost 50 percent.
He stated, “It’s time to lower the drinking age. Current law is not a deterrent, and it has had negative cultural effects, particularly on our nation’s campuses. Start with the binge drinking of hard alcohol. Beer, the college beverage of choice since the first student was forced to read Sartre, has faded away. It’s too bulky to sneak into your dorm room. Vodka is today’s poison. It’s clear and mixes with about anything.”
Hinger wants to keep the age at 21.
He commented, “It is like you are on a medication for heart problems and after years you wonder why am I on this, I don’t have a problem. As soon as you are off it, you have heart problems again.”
“You don’t lower the drinking age because the problem has gone away,” Hinger exclaimed. “It can slowly start to resurface."
When Dunn was re-nominated in July at the Democratic caucus, he said that while the party volunteers canvass neighborhoods during the municipal election they should also address the lack of “civility” demonstrated by Trump.
In a recent interview with Patch.com, Dunn explained, “I’d like to keep the national chaos out of Brookfield. If people use a national overview in a local town, that could happen.”
Hinger said, “I’m more focused on Brookfield. I can’t change any of Trump’s policies.”
He said that he also disagrees with Dunn’s proposal to hire a part-time planner or a planning agency to assist in formulating a plan for expanding police facilities and the use of the site of the former Center Elementary School (CES).
There is an ad-hoc committee studying whether to expand the current police headquarters on Silvermine Road or build a new headquarters at another site. Another ad-hoc committee is studying the CES site, which may be used for the police headquarters, a community center, library or recreation facility.
Hinger said he doesn’t understand why “Center Elementary School has been vacant for two years.”
Dunn said recently, “What if each of the ad-hoc committees wants to put projects at Center Elementary School. I don’t think the first selectman could or should make decisions on how to use those buildings. I think there has to be a conversation with the whole town.”
Added Dunn, “Let’s make sure that we do it right. These projects and how to best utilize space for the various town departments is so involved and there are so many details in them that you do need help.”
Hinger said that when Other Selectman Tara Carr was first selectman and seeking re-election two years ago as the Republican nominee, she suggested that the residents have a discussion about moving to a town manager-form of government.
He said Dunn and his running mate, Other Selectman Bob Belden, rejected that idea, saying that the current Board of Selectman system was better.
Hinger said in an interview in March that he doesn’t endorse adopting a town manager form of government.
However, Hinger said in the more recent interview, “He [Dunn] didn’t want to have a town manager, but now wants a town planner, which is very much the same instance here.”
“I don’t think it [a planner] is needed,” to coordinate the police facilities and CES projects. “I think that is the job of the first selectman.”
Resources:
Interview with Karl Hinger, Patch.com, on Saturday, September 6, 2025.
Interview with Liam Enea, Patch.com, on Saturday, September 6, 2025.
Phone interview with Harry Shaker, Patch.com, on Monday, September 8, 2025.
Inthttps://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-key-to-the-young-male-vote-beer-556d06ae?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAjiMMcmM1rxd0EQyXmMnMGAG61ixX3XAPruuzvGetYF8YsVwyKYjn-mgULNnxk%3D&gaa_ts=68beb7be&gaa_sig=yjVrSFrSVhhSQpt438tamn2IMvqn-
https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-...
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/contacting-voters-through-multiple-platforms
Bill Clinton in the Washington Post, March, 2003.
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/carr-says-town-should-evaluate-pay-boost-municipal-staff
