Selectman Slater Talks Hot Topics During First Months in Office

By Scott Benjamin

Selectman Sue Slater said she shares First Selectman Steve Dunn’s confidence that even without working Democratic majorities on most of Brookfield’s municipal boards and commissions there are enough flexible Republicans for them to enact their policies.

Last November, the Brookfield Democrats had their most successful election in decades, but even though Dunn ousted Republican First Selectman Bill Tinsley by about a two-to-one margin, most of the boards still have a majority of their members belonging to the Republican and A Brookfield parties.

The Democrats have two of the three seats on the Board of Selectmen, and Slater said, “We have a good relationship with Marty Flynn,” a Republican who is his second term on the board and formerly served as the GOP Town Committee chairman.

She said the Democratic ticket attracted broad support during the campaign.

“We had a lot of coffees,” Slater said. “We met people in their homes and many were held in Republican homes.”

At the inauguration ceremony in December, U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-5), who started her political career 10 years earlier on the Cheshire Town Council, told Slater, “You’re going to have a lot of people say they want their roads paved,” since that is a typical concern in towns.

Actually, Slater said in a January 18 interview that Brookfield’s roads are better than six years ago when First Selectman Bill Davidson, the Democratic nominee, got a $10 million bond package approved. However, Slater added that the town needs to continue to have adequate road repair funding in the annual budgets so it will not have to again seek a massive bond package.

Regarding the school district’s funding, she said with lower oil prices she believes more money can be directed toward program needs. She and Dunn ran on a platform that called for more school funding.

Slater said she supported having Tom Beecher continue as the town attorney, a position he has held in eight of the last 12 years in Brookfield including the last two years under Tinsley.

She said Dunn did “his due diligence” in speaking with people in the municipal government who had dealings with Beecher over the recent years. She added that it will help to have a large law firm, such as the Danbury office Beecher is associated with, since they have attorneys doing work in specialized areas that the municipal government may need to call for assistance.

Slater said “there hasn’t been much of a learning curve” in being a selectman, since she studied the issues during the campaign and has long been active in civic projects, including the Yankee Fair at the Brookfield Congregational Church.

“Things have changed in some ways,” she said of her early weeks in office. “Steve doesn’t have as many family dinners. He’s at the town hall a lot of nights. A few people have stopped me in the grocery store. I want that to happen so that we’re hearing about what’s going on in the community.”

Slater, who sells insurance and ancillary coverage for Matson Financial Advisors in Danbury, said now “any [health] insurance you get is Obamacare.”

“There are a lot of good points to it,” she said. “There are some things that are difficult.”

“It’s allowing everyone to have health insurance,” Slater explained. “That wasn’t possible before if you had a pre-existing condition.”

“When you say the Affordable Care Act, you would think that it would be affordable,” she continued “That’s not the portion they’ve worked on yet. Many carriers are working toward that.”