Enfield Patch Questions the Candidates - District 4 Town Council

Enfield Patch continues its series of questions to candidates for town office with a look at the District 4 Town Council contenders.

Current announced in September that she would not seek re-election. Her spot on the Republican ticket was taken by Tom Kienzler, who will be opposed by Democrat Stephen Palmer.

Each candidate was asked three questions, and their responses are published here.

Question 1: What ideas do you have to stimulate business growth in Enfield, particularly in the re-use of the town's numerous empty commercial properties?

Tom Kienzler: Having been in retail management, as well as new store location development and small independent insurance for over 25 years, I have a few ideas to stimulate new businesses opening, as well as retaining existing businesses. 1: Ensure any tax incentive/abatement plan is competitive with surrounding towns. This will incentivise them to come to our town while increasing our tax base. 2: Continue streamlining the planning and zoning process to make it as easy as possible for new small businesses to open in our town. 3: Work with the Chamber of Commerce and commercial property owners to turn some empty space into coop sites. This would attract new small businesses into opening a low cost location, which helps them get their business off the ground, while providing some rent to the property owners and additional taxes for the town. 

Stephen Palmer: In order to stimulate business growth in Enfield, we must reach out to our local chamber of commerce and engage in discussions regarding obstacles to job growth.  For example, if a local business wants to expand, then we ought to work with them in processing permits faster.  In addition, we must be willing to make critical investments in our town.  Repairing local roads, building sidewalks, maintaining our public parks, and other quality of life improvements will make Enfield a better community to attract families and create jobs.  We must also encourage private investment in town.  To do so, requires public investment first.  After all, how can we expect private businesses to invest in Enfield if we are not willing to invest in ourselves?

Question 2: The town's mill rate has remained at 23.88 for four years. Do you feel the rate can continue at this level, and if so, at what expense in terms of community services?

Palmer: The town’s current mill rate is not sustainable.  Mr. Matthew Coppler, Enfield’s town manager, noted in this year’s budget that “serious consideration needs to be given for a mill increase that would go towards capital projects and purchases” (Town of Enfield Adopted Budget 2011-2012, Page 5 of Executive Summary).  The mill rate will have to be increased in order to keep current services level funded into the future.  Another “no tax increase” budget only kicks the can further down the road, further delaying our economic recovery.  Getting our residents back to work is my number one priority.  Another no tax increase budget will led to more cuts to community services - cuts which we can not afford.

Kienzler: Many factors go into answering this question appropriately. Here are a few that must be considered. Considerable dollars that have previously been coming into our town via grants and state funding have eroded and in some cases disappeared in this economy. Also previous stimulus monies are one time blocks of cash that were one time injections for our town. Your question assumes that by keeping taxes at current levels. it will cause us to lose community services. I respectfully disagree with that premise. If we collect the same in revenue and we get the same in grants and state funding, we should be able to maintain the same services with efficient management of those services. However, as stated above, when we lose state funding dollars and grant money, we may not be able to maintain all of the current services. This is what I mean when I say we must balance revenue with spending. This is where the rubber meets the road. We all have a long list of community services and programs that we would like to enact and maintain, but as in our own personal budgets, we must make smart decisions as to where the limited dollars are going to go. With the current reevaluation in progress, it is fairly certain that the mill rate would need to change to collect the same tax dollars as the current mill rate does. This is because property values have gone down in value in both residential and commercial properties. A shift may also take place as commercial properties have lost more in value in most areas. In the near future, it will be more important than ever that every dollar we spend is done so in the right priority and with maximum efficiency. No one can promise that taxes will not go up in the future, but with our record in the past four years, most of which have been in a time of recession, we have been able to prevent increases in taxes for our already overburdened residents and businesses. My goal is to work as hard as possible to balance what is truly needed to spend our tax dollars on, with the levels of taxes our people can afford. Raising taxes in this economy would create more empty homes and businesses. 

Question 3: What do you see is the biggest challenge facing District 4 residents, and if elected, what is your plan to deal with it?

Kienzler: While I will be focused on the issues of District 4 residents like the needs to upgrade and maintain Brainard Park, local road and sidewalk needs, etc., all of Enfield shares the biggest of challenges. The biggest challenge for all of our residents is the current economic recession, both from an unemployment standpoint for those who are unemployed, as well as the effects the recession is having on family budgets. Our spending dollar is worth less, people are stretched to the limit trying to do in their personal budgets what we are trying to do at the town level, balance spending and revenues. To help solve this problem, we need to increase new business opening, grow existing businesses and help the private sector create jobs. I have discussed some ideas to promote this in the previous answer. The bottom line is that we must do things that allow for growth and avoid things that stifle growth.

Palmer: The biggest challenge facing District 4 residents is the quality of representation on Town Council.  Most of the district residents that I have had the pleasure to visit with over the course of this campaign have told me that they would like their local elected officials to be more responsive to the needs and concerns of the people.  In fact, the most often comment I hear from folks is, “Wow, you’re the first person to visit my neighborhood in years.  Thank you for stopping by.”  If I am honored by my neighbors to be their voice on Town Council, then I will always make myself available to listen to their concerns as well as their suggestions. 

Board of Education candidates' answers were printed Monday, and responses from were published Tuesday. Thursday's installment will feature candidates for the District 2 Town Council seat: incumbent Democrat William "Red" Edgar and Republican challenger Dominic Alaimo.