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10/12/2021 02:15 PMDemocrat Tom Brockett is running for Branford’s first selectman with a commitment to “building a better Branford” that will better protect taxpayers, bring jobs to Branford, and keep residents informed.
Currently serving as RTM minority leader, Brockett is a lifelong town resident and recently retired labor law attorney. He’s a Vietnam veteran and served for many years as Branford Little League president. With his wife, Carolyn, he’s raised three children in Branford.
Brockett’s running mate Ray Dunbar is in his first term as a selectman. While Branford’s GOP majority has led for eight years under First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove, whom Brockett is challenging in the Nov. 2 election, Brockett said Branford Democrats have been making gains, including picking up another RTM seat in 2019 in his District 7.
“That was a long-standing Republican district. I won in 2017, and then I was successfully re-elected in 2019 along with my running mate, Donna Laich. That was the first time in a long time that the Democrats had two seats in that particular district.”
Brockett’s particularly proud of his RTM work to support Blackstone Library’s renovation funding.
“Although I wasn’t the minority leader at the time, I took an active role, in a bipartisan fashion, to make sure that our library was brought into the 21st century. I worked very hard with a Republican colleague [and] at the end of the day we were successful in getting the library passed by a very small margin.”
Brockett tops a Democratic ticket with a full slate of candidates. In addition to Dunbar, his administrative team includes candidate Eileen Poulton Cimino for town clerk and incumbent candidates Kurt Schwanfelder for treasurer and Roberta Gill-Brooks for tax collector.
“We’ve put together a team that I think is representative of the town of Branford, and is also a team that gets along and will work well together,” said Brockett. “I think this team approach is a much better way to run the town than it is by a single individual.”
Brockett sees many advantages to working closely with Dunbar, a retired Branford police captain and union president with years of experience in the “inner workings” of the town’s budget process.
Brockett notes that, between 2014 and 2021, Branford’s budget increased 18 percent, town debt increased 28 percent, and taxes went up by 12 percent. Branford’s mill rate is currently 29.45 mills.
“I think we can keep it under 30 mills, especially for the next fiscal year,” Brockett said. He would put Dunbar in charge of initially reviewing budgets to find efficiencies and savings, “Then I would work with him and the department heads to make sure that every budget would come in with a responsible budget that would provide the best possible services to our residents.”
Brockett also feels “better planning” could have avoided some costs on debt-burdening projects including the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter expansion and Community House.
“I object to the overruns...all of those issues could have been handled much better from the beginning,” he said. “The animal shelter, that project started back in 2017, [so] when you were thinking about doing this project, if you put your building committee together then, instead [of] three years later, you would have had a much different result.”
On the campaign trail, “I’m hearing our budget is increased, our taxes have increased, our town debt is fairly increased in the past eight years, and yet our Grand List is minimally growing. That’s another issue. Just last year, we took $3 million out of our rainy-day fund to supplement the 2021-’22 budget,” he said, adding that he’s also hearing “our population is becoming older, not younger.”
“We’ve lost several hundred children over the past five years in our school system, and we need to work hard to bring younger families to Branford [so] we’re no longer an aging community, we fit in the median again. We have the infrastructure already for the school system. We just need to bring them in here to help our revenue,” he said. “How we do that is we create some good paying jobs. Ray and I have an economic development plan for that, and if elected, we’ll put it into play.”
It’s a two-part plan. Brockett said the first part brings more revenue into town to offset the need to increase taxes, with efforts including a focus on revitalizing the center of town. In addition to the RTM-approved Main Street renovation project in spring 2022, Brockett said he’d have a full-time economic development coordinator working to help revitalize and bring different businesses to Main Street.
While Branford filled a new part-time Branford economic development and business manager position last month, “on Day One, I would hire a full-time economic development coordinator,” said Brockett of a position that hasn’t been filled since September 2019.
He’s also following Amazon’s proposal to construct a delivery station off I-95 Exit 53 on Commercial Parkway.
“I don’t see Amazon bringing a ton of revenue to the town,” he said. “I’d like to know more about Amazon and what their plans are, and I’ll attend the meetings when they come up in the future [to] learn a little bit more about it, before I made a final decision on that. I’m always open to really figuring out exactly what’s best for our town and our residents.”
Brockett said it’s an area he feels need to be developed, possibly with “high-end manufacturing” that doesn’t draw a lot traffic.
Brockett would also reach out to the bioscience community to continue building on Branford’s growth in the industry sector.
“The bioscience community, the biomedic community, the life sciences community—this is an industry that has had explosive growth over the course of the last 5 to 10 years. This is our future.”
Branford has existing space or could foster some zoning changes to support certain companies, if needed, he said. The town also offers desirable sewer/city water infrastructure and proximity to incubator programs at Yale. Brockett said a concerted effort by Branford’s leadership could readily pump up the number of residents and younger families attracted here by good paying jobs in the sector.
“I could see that easily doubling in a very, very short amount of time if you had the right people and the right economic coordinator, right now, to go out and get these businesses.”
The second part of his team’s economic development plan is supporting and marketing the quality of life resource of Branford’s recreational open spaces.
“I’ve met with the commissioner on open space—he’s a terrific guy, they do a terrific job; it’s all volunteer work. But we need to protect it so it stays as open space, and we need to improve it [and] do a better job of marketing and making it available to our residents,” he said. “That would be a very small investment.”
As first selectman, Brockett’s open-door policy would extend to having other selectmen provide some public hours at Town Hall.
“I don’t think there’s enough accessibility to the selectmen, and these are three elected positions,” said Brockett. “The people should have the opportunity to talk to all the selectmen, not just the first selectman.”
The concept ties into Brockett’s desire to address a “lack of communication” from Town Hall, especially noticeable during the “COVID crisis,” he felt. He pointed to Guilford’s first selectman, who “sent a message out to their residents every single Friday night at a specific time, so the residents could get an update as to what the situation was, what the positivity rate was, how many people were hospitalized. I think that’s important information that all of our residents should know, all the time, and we had a serious lack of that during the entire COVID crisis in our town.”
Brockett said Branford’s periodic COVID Community Messages could be supplemented by other means of contact including automated calls.
“They were community messages that were shared via the email system, but there were not automated telephone calls that were shared with the residents, and we have the ability to do that. I think we fell a little short in that, and Ray and I would definitely improve the communications with our residents.”
Brockett also felt communication from Town Hall could have been better during the active shooter incident in April, 2021. While Town of Branford emergency calls immediately went out to those in the impacted area, warning of the situation and to stay indoors or away from the area, Brockett felt all residents should have been equally informed of the crisis and received additional updates as it unfolded.
Brockett would also like to implement a quarterly selectman’s report to regularly keep residents informed and updated.
As the RTM minority leader, “...I’ve tried to keep my caucus informed all the time. And I think there have been some gains. I think we were all on the same page during the COVID crisis. The record reflects that we wanted to have a 0 percent [budget] increase during the COVID crisis to help out our residents. Unfortunately, we were not able to achieve that goal because we were in the minority and it was straight party line vote. I still feel that way; I wouldn’t have changed my vote. I think that was a terrible crisis to go through in 2019.”
Brockett said his administration will continue to work with Branford Finance Director Jim Finch.
“He’s got a great handle on the finances; he knows what we need and he does a great job. But I do think we could use our undesignated fund balance [currently at $28 million] as our rainy day fund in a different fashion...that could clearly help offset some of our tax increases,” he said. “So that would be something I would be willing to sit down and take a look at: What do we need to maintain in a rainy day fund? Do we need $28 million in the rainy day fund?”
Brockett would work to maintain Branford’s AAA municipal rating as well as support investment and funding programs benefiting Branford, such as the Coastal Resiliency Fund. He’ll also ensure Branford’s American Rescue Plan funding will be focused on permitted uses with proper consultation to make sure its spent appropriately.
A proponent of environmental conservation, Brockett feels Branford could move ahead in that area, especially with solar power.
“We have a solar array in Branford, but we don’t have too many buildings in Branford with solar on it,” he said. “I would take the necessary steps to make sure we have solar on the buildings that can accommodate it.”
Growing up as one of six brothers, Brockett was inspired by his hardworking dad and a mom heavily involved in PTA locally and as an state-level executive. After returning from Vietnam and working as an air traffic control specialist, he returned to Branford to run a downtown business, Branford Bike, with his brother. He then attended community college on the way to graduating from Wesleyan University and UConn Law School as a night student. Brockett successfully ran for his first RTM term shortly after retiring from his law career.
In choosing Brockett as their first selectman, the people of Branford will have “a good leader,” he said.
“The residents of this town should know I’m committed to this town and I’m a hard worker—I’ve done that my entire life,” said Brockett. “I have a commitment to the community. I have a proven track record of hard work. I have honesty; I have integrity.”