001oh yeah hi good evening everybody my name is marty mcniff i am the chair of the brookfield youth commission we'd like to thank you for coming out to our youth commission candidate forum we're very happy to provide a chance for the public to hear from candidates for brookfield's board of selectmen board of finance and board of education tonight a little bit of information on tonight's event all questions come from or were prioritized by bhs students the students were given the opportunity to write questions that were important to them we will have two questions for each board that were submitted and worked on by dhs students and our student members of the brookfield youth commission no candidate had any input on the questions nor do the candidates have any advanced knowledge of the questions on a
002side note i'm going to take a moment to brag about our student members of our youth commission i want to say how impressed and proud i am of our student representatives their dedication time and contribution are something that communities should take note of we'd also like to extend a sincere thank you to vhs teacher senor davila for all of his help hard work and his outstanding commitment to the students thank you senator mcgillin finally a reminder that this is a public meeting primarily for brookfield's youth so the focus will be on asking candidates about questions that are important to youth we'd like to thank the audience for attending and just a reminder to be respectful to all candidates and that we do need to keep masks on for the entire event i'm going to turn
003it over now i'd like to introduce our vice chair liam tanya and he's going to go through how the event will run thank you everyone this is how they remember home tonight board of education and board of finance to the front of the auditorium at once each candidate uh the slavery children like trump coined charles we'll have up to three minutes to introduce themselves and they will be going in a ballot order by slave each candidate will then have up to two minutes to answer each question there are two questions for each board again they will speak more of their ballot uh and they will be after each slave speaks for each uh all the candidates for each board we'll have five minutes to allow for rebuttals if there are any between the different candidates
004but we hope that this would be a very civil and great event for everyone to meet we also have introduced our student members greg friedman uh issue who will be doing the time price tonight and samina and greg will be asking the questions and moderating evan so thank you all and we look forward to this being here [Applause] hi everyone at this time we would like to invite the candidates for the board of selectmen in front of the auditorium [Applause] candidates will be going first so i would like to um invite republican candidate for sponsoring tara carr to introduce herself for doing this thank you good evening brookfield good evening to um the youth commission thank you for having all of us here tonight and to marnie mcniff for her mentorship and superior coordination of
005the students of our fine camp also to senor de villa gracias appreciate everything that you do for everybody and um that took up a little bit of my three minutes but i have a little bit of nostalgia in this auditorium tonight the last time i was on this stage i was actually a stagehand in a production in 1993 as a freshman here at the high school um many of you i already know some of you i haven't had a chance to introduce myself to so my name is tara bona udo for those i'm sorry i made it in with juana hudo for those of you who watched the debate and my married name is carr so i am um from the area i was born in danbury raised in brookfield at st joseph school like
006i said i attended brookfield high school my freshman year and then i switched to new milford high school and it was at milford high school where i had an opportunity to study abroad to brazil as a rotary international exchange student and that's something i'm very proud of and it's something that i'm curious to know if brookfield will be again having their students participate in study abroad opportunity um that opportunity for me as a young as an adolescent what that what my appetite for not only world travel but any language but interesting cultures and unders a better understanding of how very large but also very small our world is that was in 1995 and then in 1996 i left for the army and i've been serving in the army for 25 years upon retirement last year
007i decided to move home with my four children and my husband and we decided that we could have literally thrown a dart at a map and moved anywhere but we chose to come back to brookfield to raise our family here and it was all for the same reasons that you all maybe have lived here for decades for the same reasons you've decided to raise your families here we're the reasons we chose to come home so i worked my way around the world and earned the rank of lieutenant colonel from being an enlisted private i have many many global experiences and i'm happy to share any part of my life experiences with all of you and especially with the adolescence of our town i am a huge advocate of lifelong learning i've attained two master's degrees
008throughout my journey and i believe that our life here is about keeping open mind open heart and continuing our journey to learn as we navigate our way through this life thank you very much thank you i would now like to invite republican candidate mr selectman perry shaker to introduce himself for three minutes i'm gonna understand that it's much better when walking it just goes back to coaching my name is harry shaker uh for the four or five in here who are not part of the candidates and don't know me um you know it's really it's really it's amazing when you think of the situation that the world is in right now this nation is when the state and the town of brookfield you know we have so many key issues and this place should be
009overflowing with people and it really disheartens me to think that we've got maybe 20 people here but we're not involved in the campaign we need to stop being in place and we need to get involved and get uh educated my wife and i moved here i'm born and raised in danbury we moved here in 1980 been here for 41 years three year old children we have two 12-year students went through the whole program 111 my oldest son mike went to prince of peace i am very very active with athletics again i'm probably talking about 10 people who don't know me so please bear with me for those who do uh very developed athletics uh i've coached from the f division all the way up to two terms as on the varsity basketball program coaching about
010three thousand kids i run a private business in campaign contracting we deal with hundreds of realtors and hundreds of hundreds of department management companies uh property managers and we really enjoyed living in brookfield i was born and raised in danbury my wife grew up on a 500 acre farm in new crescent she wanted to live up there i wanted to live in danbury we chose brookfield because it was a little bit of both it was still country we live on long metal hill road we need to change that to long enough hill road because we have no metals left but we came here because we love we love brookfield when you think about the situation i i was contemplating i was 14 years on the board of education and i uh and finished my fourth
011year with steve and sue and i really was thinking you know i i've got an 18 month old granddaughter uh maybe maybe i'm going to stop running i'm going to be very honest with you and sometimes i get myself in trouble by being honest but i think we as a society prove that when you know we do things the way we think we should do them we make a mess of things just look what's going on around the world that's going around on our government and i said to our children i said we need more people to think we're going to have their action feed through that and now through just thinking what they think is best and when i told them that i was thinking and not running they said well if you don't
012run there's going to be one lesson so that's one of the reasons but the main reason why is the girl behind the young lady and i meet jared carr i read her bio and i just really rejuvenated me it's no secret to anybody that the last three elections have been difficult uh they've been difficult for me i've never been to center caps moving forward um i think we have a bright future uh i am looking forward to working again for the people one of my keys and one of our keys is going to be the seniors especially down at the core it's appalling that they're living the conditions that they're living in right now but i thank you for your time i thank you all for coming and i wish you the best [Applause] [Music]
013thank you i would now like to invite the democratic candidate for first election steve dunn to introduce himself for three minutes thank you i'll do the same thing as harry i'd like to stand a little bit my name is steve dunn my family and i moved here in 1983 because i've gotten a job as a northeast regional manager for a company and my single biggest client was union carpet so we were living down in westchester and we were doing a reverse commute and we started to look for a house and we found broken we found a great house in brookfield we lived in that for 20 years it was great and then we bought another house in brookfield and two and a half years after i moved to brookfield i just finished up my mba
014and i got my dream job offer it was on wall street and we thought about moving out brooklyn getting closer to my job but i decided i didn't want to do that i love brookfield it was a great place to raise kids it's a great street i lived on it's a great community safe well-run we just love brookfield so same pokemon i commuted to the city for well over 30 years and i didn't mind doing that i didn't like getting up a fight early in the morning to get there to office but that's what you do so during our time in brookfield i still found time to be a leader in the boy scouts including scoutmaster for i believe four years i was in boy scouts for 22 years i coached baseball for 20 years
015including running every single one of the leagues in baseball and travel teams i coached an odyssey in the mine team for five or six years we won four state championships so i have been involved in the schools and in our children's lives my entire life here broken and six years ago sue and i ran through office and we all know what was going on back then we don't need to discuss it and we said we will bring a couple things back to brookfield one is civility and we've done that the board of finance the board of ed the board is selected all talk when we do budgets the board of the board of selectmen and the board of finance and the board that all sit down and go over those budgets and we have gotten
016to the point on the budgets and the transparency in the budgets that this year the board defense budget was so good it was passed virtually unchanged by the board of finance and let me tell you our point of view is a tough board it's republican-led it's controlled by republicans but we don't do it as a partisan means we work together to get what's right for brookfield so i want to thank you all for coming i appreciate it very much getting a little flag here my 30 seconds are up i am proud to be your first legend i am very proud to serve with sue slater and i hope you all have a good evening and learn a lot thank you thank you to invite democratic candidate for selecting seats later to introduce yourself for three
017minutes thank you good evening and thank you to the youth commission and to our residents that are joining us tonight either in person or online my name is sue slater and i'm honored to be nominated for a fourth term for your sport of slenderman i'm a connecticut girl austin i believe you said at the debate your family's been here 100 years about that i've got to be my first ancestor came to america in 1627. he arrived outside new haven on a boat called the hector i didn't travel far from there born in new haven raised in hampton graduated from the university of connecticut where i met my husband liz he was raised in brookfield and when deciding where to live once married we both agreed this was the perfect town this building holds wonderful memories
018for us as well cara my husband graduated in 1973 one of the early classes here my twins graduated in 2003 and my goddess in 2009. they all held student council positions from huckleberry right through to graduation and each were presidents of their classes this stage hosted graduation speeches by my children and many school plays i'll never forget alex as connected along other roles i was always amazed and proud by their courage i could never have run for an office or been in a play at their tender age but fast forward in many years of volunteering i was the cub scout pac-5 committee chairman classroom helper at huckleberry and again at whiskey year library sunday school teacher deacon yankee fair chairman and business club president all of these positions have helped me to understand one person
019can make a difference but better yet a team seven years ago steve asked me to run with him the town was in need of steve's leadership finance background and management skills i said yes we can make a difference and we have we've moved the needle on getting four corners started after 20 years of stagnation after years of complaints and money thrown at hufflepury next year at this time our students are going to be in an art in a uh i'm sorry in a state-of-the-art facility even more important probably is going to return to eight to grades six through eight and no longer using the portals we look forward to that and putting much-needed ball field in this place going forward we've updated the town website to make it easier to navigate and learn what's happening
020in town our spotlight newsletter is sent over a thousand email addresses the code red system we implemented to keep residents aware during covid communication can still be lacking for some i propose a sign at the new school which will give our residents information on what's happening in town whether it's a football game there's an election there's something going on there's hope and shots at the town hall so please i would love to hear that if i get your vote and have another two years thank you thank you i would now like to invite third party candidate first selectman austin ontario to introduce yourself all right good evening everybody how are you doing tonight good good all right this is a good thing uh so i thank the youth commission first of all for putting this
021event on uh you guys are truly inspiring me i think the future of this country is gonna be better off with uh more folks like yourself getting involved in an early age i wish i did this at actually uh so with that being said we'll take a little different approach tonight i'm not going to talk about my resume or what we've done obviously i'm running as an unaffiliated candidate so i want to get into my why and why i decided to run before first celebrity i kept coming back to three goals in my mind that i that i wanted to accomplish that was of the utmost importance to me in this run the first one is to increase increased voter turnout and political awareness our debate the big news last week got 1800 views which
022i think is incredible for our first selectman debate in brookfield and i truly think on november 2nd we're going to have a record turnout four votes this election season which is awesome so that was my number one goal number two to redefine politics here locally to salvage democracy here locally i'm sure i know we're all here on facebook it's getting very divisive um a lot of things that aren't pushing us forward we're moving us left we're moving us right we need to move forward together right it has to stop now i could i couldn't sit around anymore and just watch and play from the sidelines we have to get involved i also want to supply our change and and these sparkles we bring more people younger people like the youth commission and people my age
023to get involved into politics i think we have a lot to offer we come from a totally different generation we grew up in a total different culture and mindset than our current politicians at all levels we need new voices we need a lot the same old same old just is not cutting it anymore and finally my mindset every day is to do what's right not what's easy this is the mindset that's driven me for the past 20 years during this campaign as of many things in life especially as a third party candidate people tell you you know you can't win people tell me you're splitting the votes people tell me you don't know enough people they just say you're just the gym owner they want me to be quiet they want you to be quiet
024they don't want change they want you to quit but if we quit when it gets hard we will have no progress and my answer to them is that it is that simple we can't make a difference and we're not stopped we're going to follow our heart we'll take action and we're going to do what's right not what's easy one click one quick platform piece like to get out there uh it's a lot of talk i'm going to be giving back the fifteen thousand dollars salary that the first election is getting is elected and we're going to give it to a scholarship for one of the brookfield high school students graduating uh starting next year if elected that'll be an every year thing we'll encounter the name with it and it's not necessarily for a four-year
025university it'll be for a trade school or any other kind of continuing education so we're all about the kids want to provide an opportunity for all the hard work that they do so thank you guys and uh thank you everyone for coming tonight appreciate it thank you um youth commission has come up with two questions per board that we would like the candidates to address and the first question you would like the candidates to address is what is the most important thing we can do to address the social and economic needs of the town's youth i would like to invite first block and candidate steve dunn from the democratic party to address this question for two minutes thank you thank you the board is selected and sets the goals policies and direction of the town
026and because of that and the work we're doing i'll give you a perfect example instead of just deciding how we're going to spend the money ourselves of the caspian harriet or selected media we formed a diverse group of 10 people to take in all the ideas of what we should do in town with advisors from the board of finance board of selectmen and board of education we try to involve as many people as possible in the process of helping our town move forward that committee is charged with coming back to us with the best ideas for what to do with the five million dollars in our money that we're getting i don't think three people should decide what to do with that money i think as many people in the town should be involved we've
027gotten dozens of requests and we've also gotten dozens of suggestions and a lot of them really good a couple of them were a little odd in my opinion but it shows people in this town care they really want to do what's right when uh this pandemic started the nights and the town started brookfield recovers we raised over 70 000 to help our neighbors it's all through donations from you from our residents it's not a penny from the town not a penny in grants it's all money from people in brookfield wanting to help their neighbors that's what we do in brookfield we help our neighbors we did it in the macroverse we've done it in a pandemic and we're going to continue to do it as long as you elect sue and i thank you thank
028you i would like to invite third party candidate austin montero to address this question for two minutes could you just ask that one more time for me question what is the most important thing the to board of social and economic needs of the town's youth so great yeah great question so i think i understand touched that in my opening with creating that scholarship program for brookfield high school graduates and again we're going to perform a committee and we'll try to find the right components to figure out who is best suited for but again it'll be a four-year school trade school or any continuing education uh to touch on what steve said the american wrestling plans funds money i'd love i brought this up during the debate to create uh some more public health here in
029town some real public health for the youth we need more activities for the youth i coach a lot of these kids here in town coach a few that are playing volleyball right now in the other room i find the activity and the physical exercise that they do will carry over to them being better people and being able to form better relationships and being able to just live happier healthier lives so i think that's a lacking problem i think the biggest problem in the world but that's something we need to focus on and we have five million dollars that we can do that with so again the scholarship is huge and using that money to help public health and help our youth as much as possible thank you thank you i would love to invite republican
030candidate in the first election tara carr to address this question for season so i'm going to stay seated i like to speak with people and not talk at people um i'm very relatable and approachable and that's something that i'd like for everybody to know so um in order to better understand the social social and economic needs to address the towns used there has to be open communication that's first and foremost if the senior leadership of the town is unaware of what those issues are we have a problem at the get-go right out of the gate so i think there is a lack of communication in town and sue elaborated on that that we could do much better in that area as far as being more transparent and having um a better understanding of what the
031needs of our town are so it starts with that mr dunn commented on the arc of funds um 2.5 million of which we already have in this town which hasn't been allocated they set up the ad hoc committee this money should already be distributed for those needs especially when it comes to addressing the problems that our youth are having um that payout isn't due in full to the town until 2020 so essentially it could be the 5 million dollars could be held on to for another two years which is horrifying because there are people in town who need it now regarding scholarship programs um yeah more of that would be fantastic like mr montero said but going back to my introduction i think study abroad programs for diversifying our youth and introducing more current foreign
032languages i don't know if you all know this about me but i speak chinese and it's very important to be able to relate to diverse cultures that occupy and live in our town we're lacking sports fields to include baseball fields mainly in part because the two fields at huckleberry were demolished a skate park was brought up and if that's a grassroots endeavor that's fantastic the greenway expansion and workout areas along that path are a fantastic idea for helping our youth and also employment postcoded if we can get our youth working and involved in our community that would be fantastic thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you uh first i want to applaud the positions that we do have available right now and that is brookfield cares uh that's been in town for many years now it's
033helped a lot of students as well as parents uh we also have the head of the youth commission and i want to thank liam for bringing that back to us in the last couple of years it's been a great you know mentioning coding i mean this is a real problem that we've had for our students um we know that it's been difficult for them to wear the masks it's been difficult for them to be you know learning this at home so i believe that we do need to invest in mental health for our youth that's something that has been lacking and something that's been very neat right now i do applaud the idea of a skate park i think it's a wonderful idea we don't have anything right now for youths in that age group
034so if we didn't put an outdoor facility for them to go out and get fresh air i think it's wonderful um this is school itself is fantastic i mean i'm the principal from landa our whole entire board of education is doing a fantastic job and i applaud them for all the work that they do and i i'm going to leave you with that thank you i would now like to ask republican candidate for selectmen harry shaker to address this question for two men socially and economically well i'll start with education i think it's no surprise to anyone that children today to me seem a bit more fragile a little bit more inhibited i think a lot of it is due to social media and different things that are going on in schools we need to
035make sure that our engine that they're not only educated well in the classroom i would like to see our education be more north and south rather than east and west i'm not a fan of teaching as much as we can i'd rather see them go deeper to where they are solid in their in their core horses um and as far as learning how to how to uh be successful whether it be as a parent as a brother as a sister in the work field you need to be able to have confidence and you need to be able to socialize and the extracurricular activities to me are as as important as the classroom we need to make sure that we also i when i was on board about i spent 14 years on the board of
036education before i was selected and one of the things i try to push is the life skills program where we teach as a core in our educational life skills uh teaching how to run a business how to run a household how to cuddle uh go out and look for work we have a full shot down below to trade so we're going to do the trades you know so many people look down on the trade too who are going to beat the tradesmen um you know they're going to move on there's tons of opportunities out there we have to get these children and kids ready to move on and again we need to go north and south as far as economically we need to make sure that grovefield is the town that they want to come
037back to we want to make sure that there is housing that they can go into that they will be comfortable in and that's one of the reasons why downtown four corners is such a vital project such an important product excuse me project thank you all right thank you so much i'm the second person to be speaking um so the second question we have um is going to be about sustainability now i'm on what's called the sustainability council which is a council of seniors at my high school and we specialize in well right now we're working with government documents trying to see what is our town done what is the plan to do um with mr dunn um we've met with mr w ford to work on sustainability um we wanted to do that going forward
038and to propose new initiatives to the school and also through the local government um this is my question um given the recent wave of new developments in brookfield how will you factor sustainability green technology and respect the environment and to your leadership decisions now i'm going to start with mr montero going first sure so the question one more time oh sure um given the recent wave of new developments um how do you factor sustainability green technology and respect for the environment into your leadership decisions sure i think it's very important especially moving forward uh you know climate change is a real thing clearly uh i'm all for green technology uh when it comes to development every every single project is different commercial real estate background and you'll learn that as you go every single project
039you encounter is going to be different so these things need to be taken into account on a case-by-case basis that should definitely be part of the decision-making process the green piece of it the sustainability piece of it and how it affects our environment and climate that should be a huge piece of it i am pro-development i don't want to see developments stop here in brookfield i think we have some other areas that we can develop correctly as far as the cornfield area and the berkshire corporate park i know we have 75 acres up there that we can develop i think growth is a good thing i think brookfield is going to continue to grow and i think uh that's natural that's what we want to have happen we can't go back on time like i
040said earlier we have to go forward in time and we have to do it the right way taking into account all these facets that were just brought up in this question thank you now we're gonna have um first election candidate for republicans um mrs [Music] respect for the environment is vital where nobody is denying that and it is obviously um a big part of the equation as your generation moves forward because all of us will be moving on and it will be in your hands youth commission and your children my children my grandchildren um as it pertains to brookfield [Music] sustainability is very important and i commend the brookfield high schoolers who are part of the initiative to work on the sustainability the name of the actual uh committee is lacking right now but um
041greg gambowski's the mentor of that program and i've sat at board of selectmen meetings where steve dunner has um invited them to pursue earning higher status in the town and working on their goals to make sure brookfield remains sustainable and can incorporate projects and programs i think that's an absolute fantastic program so i commend the high schoolers efforts in that regard regarding brookfield itself and green technology yes i'm a huge proponent of that i love going to the mall and seeing how they have the charging stations for electric vehicles and i understand that that's an initiative across connecticut i am a huge fan of that um i think if you go north into litchfield county we look at all the land trust they have in place and that to me is is very um important
042and unfortunately we're lacking that space here in brookfield while i am not anti-development i'm also very pro-good development and i think there's a fine line with what that means um for example there's a plot of land behind the new del primo shopping center if you look up back up on the ridgeline that's um could potentially be developed it's zoned for a large amount of units and that's just another plot of land as an example that will be trees will be torn down and we'll have more apartment buildings so we have to really take a look at what the balance is between protecting our environment what is sustainable and what's not another great example is candlewood lake um for those of you who don't know we're on the trajectory where the lake could be closed in
043seven years if we're not careful because we're ruining the environment in that regard thank you all right steve um thank you very much sustainability has been incredibly important in oakville and sue and i started in our and when we first started uh working in the town uh we created a group that worked with hrra we brought in electronics recycling we've done that twice for the last three years we brought in hazardous waste recycling in town free-for-all residents so that you can recycle just in the past six months i don't know if everybody knows this but did you know 25 of your garbage by weight is glass and that ballers pay by time so we put in a glass recycling center at town hall in the parking lot between town hall and the fire department and
044we can get 25 and glass is endlessly recyclable endlessly so you can take 25 of your garbage and recycle it just by bringing your glass down the town hall the hazardous waste recycling keeps these chemicals out of our storm drains out of backyards and it works really well we've finally two years ago achieved bronze level so the connected sustainability council we are now shooting for silver and i'm working on that right now and you have to do a lot of different things to get silver and gold and our ultimate goal is to become a goal we started to work with the students here at the high school who are really fired up and greg dembowski has been helping them working with the town so we have a good record of this town of people wanting
045to be sustainable and doing it so thank the town for doing that and i thank you and appreciate it bye um can you please have harry shaker speaker sure with all due respect to stephen so i don't want you to think that i was on sabbatical for the last few years i was part of the programs as well putting these in with recycle and the hazardous waste you know with the glass sometimes i do feel like when you read what's what's out there that i've been on sabbatical i have not if you take a look around there's more residents and there's more businesses using solar heat with the solar panels i think there's a group we have done well in uh with the glass getting the recycling another area which may not be needed as
046green but something that i think has a real effect it can have effect on our health and it certainly affects ecologically is the flight problem we have in town i think that we need to do a much better job in taking care of the blight we're not going to be able to remove the buildings that are vacant we can't put people in there but we can certainly make sure that properties are maintained that they're safe and they're not in danger to us uh in the middle of the winter i went around and i was able to look at a number of them and they were vacant they were broken open peter's imports every glass was broken out and uh you know i reported to grand valley and you know we have been able to get
047those cleaned up but there are things that we want to do and that uh terry and i have especially with the buck with blight and i think that we can control it much better as being controlled right now and uh they think that especially in that area where the uh where the uh the construction and the wood uh the street seats is going north of the four corners between four corners and the new milford line we do do a much better job on that thank you [Applause] thank you uh yes as steve mentioned sustainability has been very very important to us when we got into office we have a energy group third ad hoc group we've since raised them up and now they are a committee of many of several people in town and that's
048what they do is they just look at where can we improve we've changed all the lighting in our town hall libraries something about correct so we're working on that as well we also voted to become a part of the route 7 corridor well they will allow us to put in electrical systems that people can come and charge their cars so again that's something that's very important to us uh let's see we've done the glass you mentioned that um i know we've talked a lot about another thing that we'd like to do is uh bring recycling back over to where the grass cuttings are put and all that that is something that we're looking into we'd like to be able to do that and not rely on either the milford which started charging us way too
049much money or dan mary who i hear complaints are not very nice people down there so we'd like to bring it into our you know our own area see what we can do there we're working on that as well um [Applause] hello okay thank you so much for your answers um due to time we will not be able to do rebuttals so i would like to now invite the board of education [Applause] uh also during the time our introduction to the board of education will be limited to one minute for canada we'll start with republican candidates for the board of education um i would like to ask cheryl if she would like to introduce herself in one minute hi my name is sharon i've been an educator for at least 30 years i'm sorry sharon
050i'm sorry i dropped it it's going to be two minutes instead of the one i did that was a mistake okay i think the board of it is one of the most important boards in town because when schools are good your town is successful i think that we need to work on academics as well as the social issues children face even our very young children are confused with what goes on in the world they hear it they hear the news they're wearing a mask and i think that this is new to us it's new to parents it's new to teachers and it's new to the boards we have to start very early in a child's academic life to find out what their needs are and how we can go about helping them even if it
051means spending more time on the social issues as i said when your schools are good in any camp when your schools are good your town is successful and people want to move here and they want their schools to maintain the positive direction that they're going in thank you but thank you um i would now like to ask the public community candidates for the board of education when they're honored to introduce yourself or tune in hi my name [Music] uh my is and i have enjoyed our beautiful home here in brookfield in our beautiful community for the past 25 years our daughter son-in-law and three beautiful grandchildren live in nevada however we wish they were in the wakefield my background is in theater music and dance where i have been a performer choreographer director teacher and
052producer for very many years without the fine education and training i had during my school years and throughout my professional life the difficult career that i chose would not have been possible what was so very important beyond the technical scholastic and on-the-job training was the inspiration and impartation from outstanding teachers and of course my parents of a strong work ethic the love of learning and the appreciation for having the freedom to follow my dreams creating a successful life for being raised by my very special immigrant parents in a little town in ohio to the bright lights of broadway took a lot of hard work resourcefulness ingenuity and dedication beyond the arts i have become a successful real estate investor and somehow managed to balance both careers determination and hard work why money for the board
053of education is because of the youth i'm concerned about youth of america you must be given the support encouragement and the tools you need and it's deal with love of learning the ability to think on your own and with appreciation for freedom in order to achieve your dreams with a strong background in the arts and teaching as well as in business in the big apple and around the country i believe it's all about the youth and i'm here for you thank you i would now like to invite republican candidate for the board of education jointly designed to introduce yourself for tinder good evening my name is joy greenstein and i'm an elementary reading specialist and this is my 21st year of teaching i work with kindergarten through fourth grade students who struggle with reading and
054writing in addition to teaching i hold many leadership roles at work i've been assistant to the principal i've been head teacher and this is my third year being the district's english language arts curriculum coordinator through this role i write curriculum i align it to the common core state standards and benchmark assessments i provide develop professional development to the staff and i push into classrooms to model lessons and model best practices i'm the vice president of my teachers union and i'm on the negotiations team i run english language arts tutorials before school and i'm the advisor and creator of an after school book club for higher level i've been living in brookfield since 2007 with my husband matthew and our two children vanessa mason for the past 10 years i've been very active in the community
055doing a variety of different things i was a catechist at st joseph's church and led the children's choir i coached for the brookfield soccer club the brookfield basketball association and then lacrosse club i brought back squad patches of garden at huckleberry and we turned it into an outdoor classroom and we provided years of food for our brookfield residents i spearheaded the product of painting murals and positive themed things on the walls of huckleberry and last spring i led the charge and the spearhead of the eighth grade moving up ceremony and field trips i currently serve on the board of education after being elected in 2017 i'm the chair of facilities subcommittee i want nothing more than to continue the great work of the canada lake elementary school project the boys high school project locker room
056project getting rid of the portables at wisconsin improving our facilities district-wide and in addition to improving our sports facilities such as a new concession stand and bathroom facilities outside i'm a member of the cape subcommittee i'm a board of liaison of the youth commission and the brookfield education foundation i'm running for reelection because i have a vested interest in our schools and students i want to continue advocating and pushing our district forward in a positive direction i want to continue promoting providing more engaging and diversified opportunities and improving our current programs and studies at the high school we need to improve many things such as our social emotional learning program such as ruler and i believe that i i'm the right person for the job i have respect for the diverse points of view and
057approach each decision with an open mind i understand that anyone who comes before the board has the right to be heard not just to speak it's my job to build public understanding support and participation free of political bias i prioritize the need to be fiscally responsible while valuing the need to be competitive by hiring and retaining high quality teachers and staff most important i believe in complete transparency thank you i would like to invite democratic candidate for the board of education at the twitter to address them to introduce yourself for two minutes good evening everyone thank you to the youth commission for putting this event together for also for all of us my name is emmanuelish leader most people know me by camera i am originally from brazil i moved to the us in 2003
058to improve my english skills then i met my husband and connecticut became my new home we moved to brookfield until 2016 i often say that i am out of my forever home i have three boys ages eight four and two my oldest is a third community revocabiary i studied business administration and finance however i've grown up in a family of educators my mom and aunts are retired teachers in brazil over the past couple of years i've become even more engaged in all matters that relate to children's education i have also worked in the foreign language field for 10 years and great value diversity and inclusion prior to college i've always attended public schools and i strongly believe that all children deserve to have the lasting quality public education my desire to run for the board
059of ed and help them keep up with the good work they've been doing not only zoom to the fact that my children will benefit from it but it also fulfills the need that i have to continue to contribute to my community in a positive way brookfield is an amazing town and i am truly excited with the opportunity to serve thank you thank you democratic candidate for board of education rosa fernandez to introduce yourself for tomorrow thank you my name is i have lived in brookfield my whole life and i'm now raising my eight-year-old daughter she's a third grader at huckleberry i'm also an adjunct professor at western connecticut state university and an entrepreneur my husband and i are in the middle of starting a company ourselves four years ago when i ran the board of
060ed my daughter was four and was nearing the start of her time in brookfield public schools at that time i asked myself how would we challenge students to be global thinkers and leaders or to use technology to spur innovation or natural curiosity and how would we inspire our students to be academically diverse and culturally aware how would brookfield remain an attractive place for young families now four years later i'm proud to be able to answer those questions and say that as much as anyone possibly could have done those things i have i can proudly say that i played an integral role in the creation and expansion of a stem department at the high school the addition of new technology courses several teaching positions materials that meet next generation science standards computers for every single student
061in the district and the broadband and technology infrastructure for our students to be the technology leaders of tomorrow in my four years two of which i have led as board chair we've added another world language to our high school offerings and a world language lab to the middle school and have begun work on a new equity and inclusion subcommittee we are a district that spearheaded social emotional learning in the state of connecticut have kept class sizes low and are for the first time ranked in u.s news and world reports among the best high schools in the nation we've researched and voted for healthy school start time and of course i mentioned the construction of a brand new elementary school i haven't mentioned covet much though those challenges have been presented they're great of course we
062never ignore them but our old challenges we need leaders who have the ability to keep calm and carry on with the work of governing this town and our school for anyone paying attention to brookfield's town governance it would be impossible to not notice the transparent and communicative way that i have led and represented the board of ed to other town boards we cannot allow covenant as many challenges to stop our progress or the ability to work together for brookfield we can't allow it to distract from the resourcing or change policy that permanently alters the values that we've always held four years ago i said it was becoming ever more imperative that our students not only begin to ready themselves for worldly challenges but also feel confident to meet and embrace them it is our jobs
063as parents as educators and as policy makers to equip even our youngest students with an educational experience that matches the professional arena in which they will one day enter i was then and still and now committed to bringing this to our schools and to our town thank you thank you are you violent to invite democratic candidate for the board of education buddy testing to introduce yourself for two minutes hi i'm bunny um i haven't lived in brookfield for very long but i have been in education for over 20 years oddly enough i feel like joy and i would have a really good conversation because it seems like our careers have crisscrossed each other um i have um taught in classes at huckleberry as a sub i have been very active on the pto and he
064was even pto president um i've taught every kind of learner from ninth graders with third grade reading levels all the way through to ap line composition and i've done many things with my career such as start my own school run my own staff have my own scheduling issues and situations work through curriculum development i've done a lot of things with my career that i'm very proud of this i've never done and i'm very nervous so i remember this um so my motto work for you or whatever as an educator is i always put students needs first and that's my number one focus whenever i enter into a school or education situation i like to make the statement put the students on the table and what does that mean it means put all the students on
065the table and assess where their needs are find where the real needs are assess those needs and then the learning comes naturally from there i really believe that if i'm elected i will do the best that i can to put students needs first to enter into a world of support for teachers whereas teachers are feeling very supported in the classroom and as a result the success in the schools comes natural thank you for your time and thank you for everyone being here tonight [Applause] thank you the first question that the commission would like the board of education candidates to address is what skills should a bhs student have after graduating and what do you believe is missing in their current education system that needs to be added um we will start with the republican candidates
066the board of education um administrator can address this question um for one minute yes oh my god um democratic candidate education administrator thank you so much um i think the more we can keep the kids involved after they graduate it will help them to help others i don't know if i want to focus on what's missing but i think it's adding value um so you know some and making sure they can they stay involved they they can contribute we can hear their voices um what i would like to see as well so not so much when they leave but you know starting early is for like foreign languages you know i speak portuguese to my children um i have a number of parents that i know who speak other languages as well and like to
067see their children speaking other languages so i think that alone would be um a bigger area of focus and uh you know could make them proud and to exercise it and you know bring that bring those ideas into play thank you um i would now like to invite democratic candidate for the board of education where the fernandez to address this question okay so um i personally think that as i was making my opening remarks um the fact that a stem technology engineering mathematics those fields are going to be critically important for our students graduating there has been a big push globally to have to have the ability to use computers and you know i know a lot of parents are not used to having their young students use computers at a very young age concerned
068about screen time but keep in mind that these students are going to be adults that are to improve and create brand new technology and they're going to need to know how to do that at a very young age and i'm very impressed with our students and what we've been able to accomplish so far but i do think there's more work that needs to be done we have been improving our mathematics and offering tutoring to students in the elementary level and i think that we'll also continue [Applause] thank you i would not need to ask democratic candidate for the board of education financial aid to address this question well i've always believed in the power of language and the power of being able to self-advocate so my goal for any of my graduating seniors is to
069be able to go out in the world and advocate for yourself and for those in need so i really believe that a graduating senior needs to be able to go out in the world and get themselves a job give themselves a situation that they're happy in and be comfortable and have a good life and one of the ways to do that is to to empower them through language teaching them the skills and the abilities to speak up for themselves and speak up for others who cannot speak up for themselves it's always been a huge belief in mine well as for what i think is missing i really don't look at it in terms of things that are missing i look at it in terms of how can we improve what is already in place i
070don't believe in piling things on top of things that aren't working i would rather look at the systems that we have in place and to see how to improve them or get rid of them if necessary so i don't like to look or even talk about education in terms of things that are missing i think that all the supports are there we just need to know how to access [Applause] what skills should a bhs student have after graduating and what do you believe is missing in our current education system that needs to be added they got a little old fashioned i think our students coming out of high school need to learn how to speak properly need to learn how to write properly need basic skills can you just speak into the microphone so everyone
071can hear it okay sorry um i found when i was teaching that we allowed children to go from grade to grade to grade who could not write a sentence i think that it makes us look bad as a country that the other countries cut students from other countries come here and they leave college or high school with the skills that are necessary to compete in the world i think i know that technology is important i understand all that but if our students can read and write and have basic skills then their success may not be as strong as others thank you [Applause] thank you i would not like to ask you candidate for the board of education in the department to address this question for one minute to me the most important thing for a
072student to have is the ability to think critically to think for oneself to be able to research to be able to see all sides of something and not just take anything for granted i think resourcefulness and ingenuity are most utmost important i'm an artist i have degrees in music and theater and that's been my life um and it is said that if someone knows music he is educated so i'm a big proponent of the arts because i think it builds the soul it builds the mind but the most important thing to me is the ability to learn critical thinking i don't know the school system here very well so i don't know what's lacking i hope there's theater i hope there's music i hope there's dance i will find out [Applause] i would now like
073to ask before we can candidate for board of education george greenstein to address this question for my life so i think one made a really good point and we spoke about this the other day that um we need to raise our students to be critical thinkers and leaders sometimes we just need to teach our students to go out and read go out and learn and do the research themselves i think that we want our students to appreciate music art literature nature they need to feel healthy in their body mind with wholesome feelings towards themselves and others they need to contribute as citizens with a sense of loyalty understanding and having an interest in their world at large one way i think that hookfield can improve this is through social emotional learning i think that um
074this is an area that we can focus on especially in the same day and age and in this day and age of covet we need to improve what we're providing as far as seo especially for our high school students i think that we could be better than ruler for our high school students we need to have stronger and more aggressive supports in place for our students that are crying out for help i would say that it's important as educators that we are sticking to the curriculum and teaching our students to ensure objectivity in the curriculum although teachers have the flexibility and creativity to deliver a lesson how they so choose no educators should be offering their opinion or have an agenda so teaching our students that there are multiple opinions they can have multiple opinions
075but both sides need to be presented and the students are encouraged to formulate their own opinions based on facts thank you thank you now um our second question for education is what types of investment would you want the board of vet to focus on that reinforces our core values and beliefs as a community now we're going to start with a republican candidate would you repeat um please sure what types of investment um you want the board of education to focus on that reinforces our core values and beliefs as a community well i have to go back to what i said before i think the most basic values are actual education but i also think today's students or young people need to be taught respect honesty all the skills and all the emotional things that we
076were taught as children sometimes i feel sorry for little children who are playing and they don't know how to interact with each other i think we should concentrate on teaching our young people a genuine love of education and an appreciation for all people thank you okay thank you um or yeah um all right what type of investment would you want the board event to focus on that reinforces our core values and beliefs i i would like to ask the students first of all what they think they need what they're lacking what they um are most interested in of course i go back to the arts i would want an orchestra i would want band i would want a good gymnasium um i would want proper facilities for the students be it restrooms or locker rooms
077or i would like to invest in in retired entrepreneurs to come in and talk to the students and teach them and inspire them to become entrepreneurs and to go on and and create their own living for themselves but most of all i would like to know from the students thank you next um yeah so just just like i said in my introduction um providing more engaging and diversified course opportunities um improving the current program of studies especially the high school like for example we discussed a course offering on drones at the high school more well-rounded and more engaging and motivating course opportunities for our youth also facilities is a huge concern district-wide so definitely funding into improving our facilities especially for our sports facilities such as a concession stand at the high school and bathroom
078facilities that are very much needed um in addition i'd say that um like when i spoke to it's important to find out what the youth would like and kind of working from there so that their voice is important and it's important to know what their needs are thank you very much this is a great question i hope to stay on focus um the so there are three things that i'm keeping that i have in mind one is going back to diversity including language related i think it's important to provide those tools to the students um one other thing that that comes to my mind to this who even mentioned as she was answering questions relate to mental health i think it's definitely important to support the students on any mental health struggles make sure they
079understand it's okay to ask for help and again provide the support of it before they ask um and the third aspect would be you know the high school i understand that um we have a great school that's being built right now but um i believe that the high school also needs some improvement so supporting that will be a major another major factor for the board of education thank you [Applause] um so i agree with many of the statements that are up here actually um i do think we need to listen to students and i think that we have a track record of doing that i have spoken to students and what i'm hearing by and large is that students want a robust academic educational experience in brookfield they want everything from languages to new sports
080teams we've been able to add both they want opportunities for clubs after school and we've been able to add that as well so that is certainly something that i think is their worthwhile investments and by mostly um i i will agree with the with a very clear sentiment that our facilities need a lot of attention um it's wonderful that we're getting a new school but we had a condition study that was done several years ago and it is very clear that a lot of our schools need a lot of attention and so that is going to be a very big focus in the upcoming years thank you [Applause] well it's hard to go last because everyone kind of said everything um i'm just gonna go back to my statement uh students needs come first and
081so i'm gonna start with the students i do like the idea of improving the facilities i want to hear from the students what are their needs there i do like the idea of adding more classes and bringing more arts and things to the curriculum and again i'm going to go back to the students what would you like to see what would you like to have happen and very much about empowering the youth and hearing what they have to say and putting a lot of investment in that thank you very much um unfortunately due to time constraints we will not have a rebuttal section um foreign [Applause] okay do you want to sit here thank you so um i'd like to start um with the democratic candidates for the board of climate um we'll have kaiser
082introduce yourself first for two minutes okay um then we'll have allen walsh introducing himself for two minutes good evening all and thank you for the uh for the support mission for the children i i really want to just say uh first off you know why do i want to be a member of the park field or to finance and also divide by people it's an excellent match of my skills and experience you know i think the answer to that is to really improve what i am i i only have a few minutes and you can obviously see there's no hair and a graveyard i have a much longer resume than would take the time we have but i guess while i like i've asked that question to myself for many years you know really for
083every decision i've made in terms of what do i do with my life and the principle has always come down to me wanting to be a part of something bigger and once making it kid and also myself better and i think the result of all this has been personal growth and a lot of experience you know i'll go back to what uh steve was talking about with his boy scout experience you know i think with them you know it's it really is you're taught to leave the campsite cleaner than you found it you know to work as a team always but also to gain your personal uh life skills and ethics on your path to uh you know to equal scouts so that you can share them with your community into adulthood the decision to
084go into the us navy was based on the same principle you know just to serve our country and shipmates and at the same time to grow personally you know through engineering through leadership and life skills such as listening appreciating differences in opinions cultural diversity and through travel to many countries you know service that allowed me the ability to live in four countries over many years to perform international telecommunication engineering sales management and adding valuable business and leadership skill set that included creation and management of multi-million dollar legends and i finally brought back to the us in brookfield 12 years ago we came back to family because that's where our family lives i also satisfied this enduring principle of being part of something through serving our company our community by sitting on the planning commission for
085almost five years and then the economic development uh commission which i'm presently as well my personal career financial services for me grew out of the strange i guess a dichotomy of engineering business people skills the engineering side of my character is meticulous it's figure based having the depth of financial knowledge and supporting licenses that include knowledge of municipal funding allows me to perform analyses and finances and the people's side of me and experience allows me to work closely with clients and really to align their plans to their goals making recommendations the board of finance is basically we're just going to ask you to wrap it up because we were at the end or two minutes yep so what a way i look at it the town is a 75 million dollar company and it requires
086a unique skill set which obviously doesn't include critical timekeeping aspects so thank you very much for your uh for your time and support thank you i would now like to invite democratic candidates for the board of finance marine corp yellow to introduce yourself for two minutes good evening my name is mary capiello thank you to the youth commission i'm so glad you guys are involved my husband told you i've lived in brookfield for 32 years our three children went to brookfield public schools k-12 and then on to the top universities when they were young i worked at borders i still volunteered in their classrooms led two girl scout troops and helped coach youth sports eventually my family teaching middle school math this time in ridgefield when i left school's degree in economics and math i
087could easily gone down to wall street but in college i found myself tutoring peers who were losing their dreams of majoring in science and business due to their weight math skills i wanted to help young people keep their options open to help them at an earlier age middle school was perfect when my children got to college i was ready for a change in the last four years i served at the library board of directors and the zoning commission among other things on the library where we help the director decide what will be included in the budget we attend board of finance meetings when the director will be presenting the proposed budget i have seen all parties work well together to look at the real needs of the town and produce responsible budgets i advise chair
088of his own commission we cannot and would not tell a landowner that he or she is not allowed to develop their land but we have rules to guide what type of project can go where in some respects have i was part of rewriting the zone regulations for the first time in decades it's now easier for homeowners and developers to complete their projects for example the new greg's helped us to bring the emerson grants and headquarters to town that one project alone will bring in about half a million dollars per year in capricorn i was a teacher and i understand what i of an ed budget i've seen the budget process from a department's point of view and from a tax credits program i'm fascinated by how the department sports and commissions work together to create
089the best work field one that offers a variety of opportunities and services for all residents with responsibly sized budgets thank you very much thank you i would like to invite democratic candidate for the board of finance island code to introduce yourself for two minutes hi my name is edwin cook i've lived in brookfield for the past 14 years with my husband and we have two kids a fifth grader and a seventh grader i have been on the board of finance now for the last four years i ran in 2017 with a strong desire to make sure that the voters had a chance to vote on projects in the previous years they had been in town a lot of things got stopped at the board of finance and i didn't believe that that's what its purpose
090is his purpose is to make sure that we're bringing reasonable budgets to the referendum is to make sure we're bringing viable projects that improve our town to the voters for them to decide i've stayed i'm involved in the congregational church in brookfield um i've worked with during my tenure on the board of finance i've worked with the board of education finance committee to keep that line of communication open over the past four years our communication across the boards has been very transparent it's been very constant i think we've worked well and shown respect for one another and that's something i want to bring forward for the next four years so i hope that you'll support the brokerage candidates i think you've done a great job under the leadership of steve gunn the boards have worked
091well together and thank you for your support thank you and now let's ask some credit candidate for the board of finance john temple to introduce himself all right good evening everyone my name is john um i very very briefly um after graduating uh college worked in investment banking for a very short period of time a lawyer by trade became a prosecutor in manhattan da's office i wound up founding and being the chief of the human trafficking unit there and now i am very proud to be leading a 75 year old organization called guideposts whose purpose is to bring hope into the world and what we do there is really focus on people's spiritual well-being and how to control that spiritual well-being we reach about 10 million people a year there we have a budget that
092is of similar size to the town and so i've been managing uh budgets and dividing process for my time there and certainly my time before that um however i really want to just focus for 30 seconds on how my wife and my children wound up coming to brookfield we were in westchester i was commuting to the city and we were looking for a place for our kids to go to school a place that had a lot to offer and a community that was private and we looked at a whole bunch of different places in fairfield county and southern fairfield and brookfield was the place that made the most sense it was open it was inviting we went my kids actually came up for soccer trials before we even moved here and within minutes this community
093that overlapped its arms around us and as i think about what makes a great community that's where i want to give of my time and talents uh to the extent that they can help i think there's been a lot of good things that have been going on in this town i want to do whatever i can i think it's it's also incredible when people want to serve uh be public servants and everyone here that has really committed to doing that so i applaud everyone who's up here tonight i look forward to if you choose to support rawai and my candidacy to be able to work with you thanks thank you i now like to invite a candidate for the board of finance ricky romney to introduce this opportunity hello i'm ricky ramos i'm a corporate
094tax consultant with pricewaterhousecoopers my wife cove owns a law firm in brookfield and i have two children in the brookville school system i've been on board to finance for the last four years in those four years brookfield suffered through a microburst numerous long-term power outages and epidemic it was through effective communication between the boards of finance members effective communication with the other boards that we solidify trust while maintaining a healthy level of scrutiny for the items that came before us this allowed us to collectively come up with a transparent lean budget that upholds the town and the school's services and needs with a minimum tax demand a transparent and weak budget that through the microburst and the pandemic require constant attention i've recently an appointed chair of the capital projects committee which will assist in
095determining priority and funding for the past capital projects and how to best work them into the town's 10-year plan my goal will be to use away from borrowing and raised threshold on paying for cash especially for assets we know will need to be funded and years to come as a board we unanimously approved bringing the candlewood lake elementary school project to referendum and as a town we voted to bring that project into fruition i'm incredibly proud of the work we've done on the bill of finance and would confidently justify all action taken in the last four years i dedicate hundreds of hours of my personal time throughout the year in order to serve as an effective board member and it would be my honor to continue to serve this town thank you we will now
096move on to the republican candidates finance and we'll begin with amelia to introduce yourself over to you thank you and thank you to the commission for hosting this event so my name is amelia molanovi my family have been residents of connecticut for 28 years 14 years here in brookfield so when my husband and i built our home in 2007 we have three beautiful children all grown and married with their own families and all living in connecticut we have six beautiful grandchildren two of which are right here in brookfield schools so we are very blessed my sister as well and her family and my 90-year-old dad are also residents of brookfield so we are so blessed to have four generations living here so um my experience stems from my 30-year career at one of the largest
097property and cavity insurance companies in the world and so in my current role as the head of the north american head of our commercial insurance portfolio i'm responsible for the profit and oversight and governance and state and regulatory requirements for a 400 million commercial insurance portfolio so i'm looking forward to using those skills and helping the community here in brookfield as part of the board of finance thank you thank you republican reporter good evening my name is andy kane i'm a republican candidate for the board of finance i grew up in connecticut i attended schools here and i've lived in brookfield with my family since 1985. my children graduated from brookfield high school i retired a few years ago after about four years with the internal revenue insurance yeah those guys now i'm an enrolled
098agent representing taxpayers before irs i worked in many areas when i was with irs i worked in field audit i was in management i was a headquarters staff and i also worked in the it area my career allowed me to work with individuals at all levels around the united states of america in federal state municipal private industry and law enforcement analysis defining the facts and getting to the bottom line was a part of my job every day that's what reward finance does i volunteered at my church i was a boy scout leader i'm the eagle scout myself and i was an emt in new york i was also very proud that to be part of the team that brought k paramedic service to brookfield we did that through insurance buildings brookfield ems at the time
099was having a lot of difficulty meeting their state obligations in terms of time response time and we were able to improve that by bringing the paid paramedic staff and paid staff in and we funded that through insurance bills i'd like to thank the brookfield youth commission for inviting me and i would especially like to thank the adult members to this program having good mentors helped me be more successful in life and i know it will help you to be successful also like many volunteers in brookfield i'm here to help and i hope i can do so on board findings i'd like to close by saying go bobcats thank you i'd now like to invite republican candidate for board finance chairman my family has been here for 30 years and my family not as long as
100sues has been here for 80 years and i extended him as stephen sue said they've been on the six-year journey i've been with him on that six-year journey i've been a member of the board of finance for six years and you've made great accomplishments we just announced a triple-a rating uh for the town we've done very well with our general fund we've accomplished a lot of things we've fully funded the board of education this year we've done a lot of things and remiss if i thank me ricky dan and brianna as part of the team we really have done a good job we have really got this town on a solid footing and we're very proud of that what scares me though is what's ahead of us this is where we need decision makers and
101good choices of voting we have a debt level ahead of us we have a need for a new police station we have a need for a library we have a need for many things ahead of us we need to be responsible to get these needs i know let's see you want to see the library center school project as well what are we going to do with the center school so we need to make good choices that's why these votes are so important who is going to do the best job for brookfield again stephen said we were bipartisan with everybody i think we need to continue to submit civility in this process and we're a good time we could be better but we're a good time so we need to face these adversities so i'm more
102worried about what's ahead of us making good decisions continuing experience thank you thank you i would now like to invite a republican candidate for the board of finance daniel divorce to introduce himself well as always to follow but let me do my best my name is dan uh divorce wife three children and i've been in town for 18 years uh two of my kids are members of the 13 year club at brookfield and recent for graduates so i think some of you on stage might know so if you happen to upon them on social media please don't involve them um i have had a 25-year career in finance and investing i'm currently the chief investment officer chief operating officer of horizon technology finance a public trade adventure investment firm the fun part of my job
103is evaluating business plans budgets making investments the not so fun part is dealing with auditors and rating agencies and regulators but all of that is directly related to the job that we do here on the board of finance i'm running for reelection before four-year term the role of the board of finance is the uh overall oversight and guidance that all financial management's found that means preparing and presenting the final budget from both sides of the town uh determining the capital overseeing the audit and all that other things that i do every day four years ago when i when i decided to run uh the town was really in a critical place we were facing a lot of critical investment decisions that glennon mentioned and quite honestly the town was not in the best place to
104make those decisions there was not a great long-term plan in place and there was this trust among the board and that created a wonderful environment for decision making i thought i could help add a level of financial professionalism financial accountability to the process and as the client pointed out a lot of ways uh people who've been on working on the board for the last four years have done just that i'm proud of our team and i'm proud of what we've done and so why am i running again uh it's because the jobs happened we are once again in a critical place lots of important decisions need to be made that are going to impact not only near-term budgets of long-term financial flexibility for um for the foreseeable future and i want to be able to
105do that while maintaining um a calm and responsible and respectful presence thank you i would now like to invite republican candidate reporter finance thomas demando to introduce yourself for two minutes can you hear me okay thank you uh youth commission for inviting us here i'm holding this my name is tom lavonzo i'm running for the brookfield finance committee my family and i live in new york towns as far as hill chapel and arma 2017 we moved to a beautiful town in portfolio connecticut do i answer your question yes i am a new york state tax refugee and i want to take this opportunity to thank you for accepting my my family and to your lovely state and your beautiful town i've been in the financial services industry since 1982 i spent most of my career
106on wall street as a research analyst and risk manager and during that time i've seen a lot of good bad and ugly decisions in both public and private sectors i won't go into the details here now about all the tragic results of some of those decisions but i can tell you one thing after seeing those results i thought i should stop talking take action using my experience both professionally and personally i've been very fortunate in providing people with ideas so they can make better more informed decisions and with your help and support i would like to do the same for our town as a member of the finance committee thank you the first question the commission has for the candidates on the board of finance is on the job of creating the tax budget each
107year what are the cornerstones of how you make financial financial decisions we will begin with the republican candidates for the board so looking at the cornerstone of how we make pilots for decisions making financial decisions so when we uh when we are looking at assessing a situation whether it's an insurance portfolio or whatever what we like to look at is the historical we look at the historical and see what we can learn from that and when we're looking to the future we have to analyze prioritize uh prioritize what's important i heard dan mentioned a few things here and glenn we've got a dead bubble ahead of us we've got a police station we need uh would be to work or to rebuild we need a library there's a lot of priorities that need to be
108prioritized a lot of things we want to get accomplished in the schools on behalf of the children so i think you look at all the priorities you prioritize what those are and you you look at the analytics around it what are the finances what are the expenses and make smart decisions around that and of course it does require very strong collaboration uh definitely collaboration across you know all disciplines and every all stakeholders so that's kind of what how i would approach it thank you um would candidate andrew combs please take one minute to address this question thank you i think it's important when you're making any decision to have all the facts i think the second most important thing is that everybody who's in that process will be honest with one another brookfield has experienced
109the 10 increase in taxes over the last three years there's a lot of needs in this town and there's a lot of watson i think the most important thing is to prioritize um you know what we really need and work together in an honest way to accomplish that i think the important thing about anything you see in physical government cases the first time you see a proposal you know generally there may they need to be cut back somewhat so i think that the process of going back and forth while it may seem controversial a lot of people don't like that or seem to avoid controversy it's actually a technique for resolving and getting to a balanced viewpoint on a dispense that everyone can live with thank you very much [Applause] [Music] um think the importance
110trust i don't think the board of finance is here to set policies or set budgets it's here to see what the board of education and the board of selection bring to us analyze the numbers look at the numbers and see how they fit into the big plan in the picture the future needs that we have we have a 10 year model that we follow that shows the debt that we're taking on the expenses the annual expenses that we have and we need to address everyone's needs in the budget so it's not a matter of us dictating to the two boards it's a matter of us working with the two boards to find a way forward for the best budget that the taxpayers can afford and they fit all our needs i've done it that simple
111it's looking at the numbers making sure they're correct making sure everybody understands what we can do and working together that's what we did this last budget i think the budget before that we did that our budget was 1.72 two years ago increased this year's 1.52 so i think we've done that thank you thank you i'd now like to ask danielle to um address this question for one month sure so thank you so financial decisions for the town need to appropriately balance the near-term needs slice wants with the long-term financial flexibility of the county and balance all that out within the construct of the financial plan that has finally been put in place recently and it's constantly being updated that's really the poor um beyond that uh my colleagues who said it is right we're not
112interested priorities we're here to fit those priorities into the plan and finance them appropriately and to work collaboratively i make all of my business decisions and all the decisions or recommendations for the founders upon two core philosophies they're not unique to me but are i think important um those are assumed positive intent and trust prepare those two things if i keep those in the front of my upon my brain i can work collaboratively i can assume that everybody's coming to the table with the with the right intention trusts that that what's being presented is accurate but then verify facts and fit that into the plan thank you thank you i would like to ask candidate thomas you can address this question thank you very much that's a great question financial decisions are done by my
113career first thing you do for me is i look at i do the research i'll do a risk assessment look at the needs versus the cost look at the budget we get the facts and the last thing we do is the planning and the execution of the actual project or or before making the decision and then you get a consensus find out all the pros and cons sometimes that can become you know have confidence in it those people have different needs and wants but we resolve that and we go forward [Applause] thank um i think the uh the decisions that we make have to be uh based on historical plan versus what you're facing today uh and i think that the board of finance has reacted very well to some of the incredibly difficult uh
114situations as we that we've had in the last two or three years it really is based on you know i think basically you know we provide oversight guidance and i think that the responsibility for that has to cover every request the special appropriations additional capital requirements for projects budget transfers you know so i think that it's really it's a matter of balancing and i think it's been done very well through the board i'd like to ask candidate mary caviella to address this question for one minute okay um so i would review the last budget to see how it worked out and if we could learn anything from it better all right so review the last but last year's budget to see how it worked out and what you could learn from it uh look at
115any contractual obligations that are changing teachers unions usually have salary increases what else went up did anything go down um did anything change so basically gather all the information um crunch the numbers of course so we get everything from the departments um see where we are upkeep of talent assets i mean capital but it's a little different i'm seeing the normal budget here pull it all together work with all the boards and departments to put forth the best budget to maintain services while respecting taxpayers and then ultimately send it to the people to have the final site [Applause] and i like to ask can eileen code with your judge's question for one minute i think in the budget process we initially you know our first selectmen um and the chairman board of ed are the
116key members to bring us the budgets uh to the board of finance and when we're reviewing it we need to make sure that you know if there are investments are they sustainable are they what the talent and the schools need uh we need to look at the numbers make sure that they're accurate and supported and as has been mentioned by other candidates the trust that we have with the leaders of these boards has really led us to a really smooth budget process this past year is there room for unexpected we've seen that in the past with unexpected special education budget increases with macrobursts coming through and hitting the town of the pandemic are we prepared for that and can we sustain that and lastly are we keeping the future in sight we have a 10-year
117capital plan we have a 10-year budget planned budget and are we keeping that in mind when we're looking at the budget we want to make sure that we're investing in the town but we want to make sure that we're providing a reasonable budget thank you i believe i'd really like to ask to address this question forward i agree with what a lot has been said on both sides tonight and so rather than repeat that the only other thing i would add is to listen we talked a little bit about continuity and making sure we're building on things that are working and as somebody who's not been on the board of finance should i be selected or elected to get on it or i wouldn't want to go in and presuppose anything i would want to
118listen [Applause] [Music] yeah so in march during our budget cycle we actually have nine budget meetings six of those are dedicated to conversations with all the different departments on their budget tasks through those conversations we're able to determine um certain items that you know especially for capital projects then perhaps maybe there isn't an immediate need and they agree that you know these items can be pushed off either or these are items that are absolutely must have requirements um not that it's our release to set the priorities but we need to know directly from the department themselves exactly what their needs are and just how important these budget items are to them but we also look at you know just the revenues that hasn't been talked about but you know in the last few years have
119a lot of one-off revenue items that help keep our taxes low we also have to you know as part of this debt bubble make sure that when these uh one-off revenue items go away and it doesn't cause a major impact to the budget so you have to really be forward-thinking as well as thinking about the president when looking at this budget thank you all right our second question for finance our final question tonight is what are your two top priorities i'm going to start with democrats with allan [Music] board of finance but i i would uh would like to ask that uh you know that we look at budgets for uh veterans uh i think that this is certainly an underserved and need uh we certainly will have you know future uh let's say we're
120going to have issues with finance uh budgets in the future you know i i think that we we really have a great um uh ability to finance now what would the improvement in our our ratings and so i think it really is it really is going to be reduced in terms of the issues that are going to degrade them so thank you [Applause] um i would want to continue the good fiscal policy that has brought up the triple-a rating and that had us um be able to borrow for the school at a really low rate of 1.5 percent and then 20 years instead of 30. i think that'll save the time seven million dollars just on that one decision um that's great for the taxpayers so continue really strong fiscal policy so we can have
121the flexibility um because we really need to look at how to fit future capital projects in we have needs for the police department library there'll be school repairs coming down the road um and of course finish the work at the town center and schools [Applause] we know that we have the capital investment project coming down the line you know when we talked about the library four years ago we also were talking about the police department and we need to look into you know when that expansion needs to occur it's been a discussion point but i think that's a high need and as we've seen the schools appear on the facebook pages there's repairs at various schools that need to take place and we need to just keep our eyes on the budget to make sure
122that we're that we're keeping a budget that's in line with what our taxpayers can can manage we need to make sure that we're you know keeping up with the good investments you know with our bond rating our high bond rating we have better borrowing capabilities but we need to keep an eye on the debt level that's coming down the road so i think keeping you know investing in the town and maintaining our assets at the same time as you know keeping our taxes reasonable for our taxpayers is important [Applause] in terms of priorities have you planned for the investments that need to be made today that are going to pay dividends five ten years down the road um but yet maintain one of the great things about this town is also that it is from
123a tax perspective affordable to live and so how do we manage those two sometimes competing priorities in a way that gives the necessary funding to the things that really matter and helping this time thank you [Applause] um one of my main goals is to increase the cash spend on the capital and as i mentioned before when i'm speaking when we have these one-off revenues the best way to offset that without hitting the next budget is by using it increasing cash capital about project that way we know we're not going to have the recurring expense and we know we're not going to have to recurrent revenue to us we just get the benefit of the of the project and capital spending so focusing on reducing our debt by increasing the cash spend is probably my my
124number one priority um other than that keeping taxes leveled and maintaining services is [Applause] [Music] um sure thank you um you know as listening to all this conversation i think i think one of the most important things that i would want to get a better handle on is how can we leverage the tax revenues that we're getting from all the significant development that we've seen and how can we stay within our existing budget without raising the tax burden to our residents but that would be a big win it's going to be increasingly difficult for the community to keep up inflation's going through the roof salaries are not going up we've got to do so we've got to do it smarter we've got to do it better um the other thing is again i can always
125go back to prioritize so we need to prioritize what these capital projects that we have before us there's a lot of significant things that i'm hearing that we need and we just need to be smarter about approaching them [Applause] thank you the two things i'd like to take a look at is the tax abatement program one of the problems with taxpaying programs is you don't need them if your taxes are lower i think maybe other towns use economic opportunity zones i think that's something we should be taking a look at i also think that we'll be able to take a look at how those how that's going to affect other areas of broken i'd like to see brookfield draw manufacturing or visit more business to the town i think that would help us tremendously both
126in terms of jobs and in terms of the tax revenue in terms of the dispense side of the aisle i think that we really have got to get to maybe a little more than getting ready i know the town various town commissions and everybody else submit budgets and things like that but uh looking at the state of the world right now with you know supply chain issues inflation that's going on social security recipients are going to be getting a 529 increase because the inflation is so high it's actually much higher than that so i think we have to be very careful going forward and it's really going to be a watch your penis type of situation thank you up next is glenn rooney all right i'll go back to the debt level we need to
127attack that bubble without suffocating the growth of the town and not overburdening taxpayers we need to be smart about it we need to address it in multiple ways we have a great surplus this year and our management of the funding that we've had the expenses we had a million dollar surplus as well as the revenue was over by 1.8 million we have the tools to address this debt level so i think that's number one two education everybody says republicans don't want to fund education we're all for working with education and funding that's a very important prospect of our time here so we need to fund education as the second most important thing to meet the needs of our children and do it responsibly to the taxpayers thank you [Applause] next up is daniel divorces so
128the priorities of the board of finance are to prioritize help the board of selectmen and the board of education prioritize and finance their priorities our personal priorities should not come into play into our decision that's number one so my priorities are to expand what glenn was saying first about the debt not only do we have a debt bubble but we also have a total debt issue yes we've had a great smp report with great rating but bearing that report there's one line that needs to be focused on and that is that our overall debt is is too high and that there is not room for a lot more debt in the near term so yes we have a lot of need a lot of projects the ability to finance those is limited by the amount
129that we currently have so my priority is to utilize my expertise in debt and an advertising schedule and all that to help finance the firearms and the final priority is what i think is one of my core strengths and that is to maintain this ability respect and communication among all towns [Applause] one is to assist in prioritizing these first of the wants i i believe education and infrastructure are our infrastructure through the biggest needs that we need and we should continue to fund responsibly the other one was just responsible growth um you know the debt level that we're talking about needs to be addressed and i think if we're but we still want to grow so glenn said and we don't want to suffocate the uh the growth of the town at the expense of
130the deadline so we need to be smart but we do have to grow responsibly thank you [Applause] all right thank you candidates for the board of finance thank you to all the candidates for the different ones that we've had tonight from both parties and additional candidates and thank you for the faithful audience who came here and there's about 60 people who are watching on the live stream at home thank you everyone and especially thank you to our youth commissioners [Applause] what