Republicans enthused about Carr's campaign to capture town hall

By Scott Benjamin

BROOKFIELD - - Selectman Harry Shaker says the local Republican Party - which annexed 10 consecutive victories for first selectman between 1987 and 2005, but only one since then – is more “enthusiastic” now “than in any campaign in 10 years.”

Standing outside La Piazza at 800 Federal Road, former Republican Town Committee member Fred Stoll went further: “There is more enthusiasm than there has been in 25 years.”

They said the change is partly due to retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tara Carr, the party’s candidate for first selectman in the November 2 municipal election.

“She is easy to talk to,” Stoll related at the Happy Hour campaign event on September 22. “She always gets back to you.”

Mel Butow, who was the Republican candidate for first selectman in 2019, added, “She is a force to be reckoned with.”

“She’s going to work on the [economic] development and the blight that Mr. Dunn has not worked on,” he said in a reference to three-term Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn, who is running against Carr and petitioning candidate Austin Monteiro.

Demolition of the area where Brookfield Village sits in the 198-acre Brookfield Town Center began shortly after Dunn took office. Critics have said the three-story buildings constructed there have focused too much on housing and not enough on retail commerce. Dunn has said Brookfield Village has been constructed according to the town’s Plan of Development.

Carr, who grew up in Brookfield and returned to town after 25 years in the Army, said that while recently canvassing neighborhoods the top topics among voters have been the development of the Brookfield Town Center, the uptick in population from the housing in that central business district, taxes, blight, the municipal debt level and traffic patterns on Federal Road.

In an interview in August with Brookfield Patch, Carr said she doesn't think that "the Brookfield Town Center is being developed the way it was intended to be about 10 years ago" since, among other things, "major apartment buildings are being built throughout the phases of the whole project."

"It was a missed opportunity and not a destination of choice," Carr exclaimed at that time.

Shaker, who is running for re-election as a Selectman, remarked, “Most of the buildings are up. Now it is management. We need to make sure that they’re being run properly and are being governed properly. Tara and I will take it to the next level.”

Brookfield Republicans have faced hurdles over the recent years.

In 2015 former Republican First Selectman Bill Tinsley was seeking a second term after being charged in Vermont with larceny and embezzlement from the owner of a liquor store. He called the charges from 2012 “false and frivolous” before pleading no contest to a reduced charge shortly before he took office in 2013.

Dunn posted lawn signs reading “Restore Integrity” in 2015. He also said some residents were upset over the establishment about four years earlier of A Brookfield Party, which he indicated was seeking to usurp minority representation in municipal government by becoming an offshoot of the Republican Party.

Also, in 2015, some of the Republican leadership took action to expel Board of Education member Jane Miller from the GOP after she ran on the Democratic ticket for a school board seat.

In March 2016, months after Tinsley lost his re-election bid in a landslide, the Republican Town Committee primary resulted in a split of seats 13-12 between opposing factions.

“The difference is night and day,” declared Shaker, who was the GOP candidate for first selectman in 2017. “The Republican Town Committee four years ago was split, there was dissension. I think that was the low point over the recent years for the town committee.”

In an interview with Brookfield Patch, Carr said, “We have had an outpouring of support that is tremendous” for her campaign.

The local town committee held a Republican Of The Year dinner in July and she has had campaign events over the recent weeks at several restaurants. Among those attending the Happy Hour was former Republican First Selectman Marty Foncello, who served from 1999 to 2003.

Dunn captured 56 percent of the vote against Butow two years ago. As of last October, 42.57 percent of the voters were unaffiliated, 30.93 percent were registered Republican, 24.58 percent were Democrats and 1.94 percent were with minor parties.

On the town’s economy, in 2003, when Republican Jerry Murphy captured the first of his two terms as first selectman, he noted that the 75 acres of Brookfield land in the Berkshire Corporate Park at Park Ridge Road had not been developed and could become a source of commercial revenue.

In 2014 Eastern Account System, a call center, began operations on that parcel and recently Branson Ultrasonics opened a $53 million structure on 13 acres that reportedly will generate more than $1 million in tax revenue annually for the town.

Is there potential for further commercial development at the corporate park?

Carr said, “I can’t speak to that right now. I’m not aware of that.”

On another topic, Monteiro recently told Brookfield Patch that he anticipates a “polarizing” discussion in Brookfield at some point over establishing a cannabis facility under the state law on recreational marijuana that Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) signed earlier this year.

Municipalities have the option of approving a local ordinance to prohibit cannabis establishments for retail sales.

Carr said that she is “opposed” to having a cannabis establishment in Brookfield.

She declared, “I don’t believe these drugs are healthy.”