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01/11/2017 07:30 AMLike many newcomers to Madison, Scott Murphy and his wife, Wendy, wanted to give back to the community when they moved here. Scott decided to coach Little League.
“Once my kids were of age,” he says, “getting involved in coaching their teams was very easy.
“And then,” he says with a smile, “the volunteer sucking sound started to happen.”
In his first year of coaching, Scott joined the executive board of Madison Little League, eventually serving for eight years as the league’s president. That position led to, among other unpaid work, membership on the Madison Park Development Committee and the Fields Advisory Committee.
Now Scott has become the newest member of the Madison Board of Selectmen, having been chosen by the Democratic Town Committee to replace Joan Walker, who announced her resignation in November.
The move from the Little League to the big leagues (he says many people have made that joke) feels natural to Scott.
“I’ve tried to contribute wherever I can to making this town a better place for everybody to live,” he says, “whether that’s on a ball field, whether that’s in a park, whether that’s creating policy.”
Having not yet attended his first meeting as a selectman at the time of this interview, Scott is hesitant to predict how his tenure will turn out.
“I think I’m good at being an active listener,” he says. “Whether it leads to specific action, you know, time will tell, but I think being a voice of the constituents is really important.”
Scott jokes that the first thing people say to him when they learn of his new job is “Plow my road! Fix my road!” But he has certain priorities he hopes to address.
One of two Democrats on the five-member board, he says he would like to help guide the downtown-renovation project to completion, to work on senior tax relief, and to support the expansion of the Scranton Library.
Scott recognizes the challenges that are coming with the reduction in state aid to municipalities.
“There are priority budget items,” he says, “and there are items that would maybe be a little lower on the list, and we’re going to have to make some really tough decisions.
“I have complete confidence we’ll weather the storm,” he says. “It may require us to look at revenue differently, through some different lenses, but we’ll be fine.”
Although Scott is somewhat late in age to be entering politics, it’s in his blood. His first cousin, Chris Murphy, is Connecticut’s junior senator.
“He was really excited that I was considering doing this,” says Scott. “He’s so busy at the federal level that I can’t imagine that we’re going to get much mind share from him, but I know that if I need to, I can text him and ask him a question.”
Scott is also related to the Griswold family, which has contributed two governors to Connecticut.
“We’re from the Simsbury Griswolds,” he says.
Scott, 48, was raised in Glastonbury. His father worked in insurance in Hartford; his mother was a teacher.
While at Glastonbury High School, Scott worked at Gordie’s Place, the restaurant owned by the hockey great Gordie Howe, who finished his career playing for the Hartford Whalers.
“It was a great experience,” Scott says. “I loved every minute of it. I was the omelet guy. I had five omelet pans going at one time.”
Scott majored in psychology at Connecticut College, where he met Wendy, who was also a psychology major.
Although he considered going into clinical psychology, he says, “I decided ultimately after doing internships that that wasn’t the path that I was meant to take.”
After graduating, he found a job with Andersen Consulting, now called Accenture. In March, he’ll celebrate his 25th year with the company.
Scott and Wendy, who went into teaching, were married in 1993. They lived in Norwalk, Westport, and Stratford before moving to Madison in 2001. Wendy now teaches at the John B. Sliney Elementary School in Branford.
Scott’s job allows him to work from home, which gives him some flexibility for his volunteering.
In addition to Little League and the town committees, Scott has been a deacon at North Madison Congregational Church, has served on the board of Boy Scout Troop 494, and has worked on his cousin’s political campaigns.
Scott’s children have also fallen victim to the volunteer sucking sound. His son, Andrew, who is 19 and studying at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, was the student representative on the Madison Board of Education and took on as his Eagle Scout project the creation of trails at Salt Meadow Park.
Abigail, who’s 16 and a junior at Daniel Hand High School, is the student liaison to the Madison Youth & Family Services Board. Jessica, who’s 14, is a peer counselor at Hand.
All three children participate in Buddy Baseball, the Little League’s program for special-needs children.
“My kids really liked to interact with the kids, and they have relationships with them in school as a result,” Scott says.
“The thing that I’m very prideful of,” he says, “is that I think by me demonstrating active participation in the democratic process, active participation in town leadership, my kids also felt that same obligation.”
Drawing on his experience at Gordie’s Place, Scott is in charge of family meals.
He says, “My wife and I have a wonderful relationship at home where she’ll mow the lawn and I’ll cook dinner.”
Scott considers his experience running Little League to be an asset to a rookie selectman.
“I saw the process of making very specific improvements to ball fields in town, so I got to see the inner workings of how the town works—whether it was presenting to the Board of Finance or presenting to the board of planning and zoning. I got pretty good experience with town government.”
Asked whether he’ll run for his seat when the board is up for election this November, Scott says, “I can’t answer that question, I think, until I get into it and see whether this is something I’m going to be good at.
“Certainly, I’m very committed,” he says. “I think the thing that I bring to the table is that once I jump into something, I jump in with both feet. I’m a very committed, active decision maker.
“I get things done. I think that’s where I can differentiate myself.”
One thing that Scott wishes that people would understand about the Board of Selectmen is that “these are volunteer positions.” Only the first selectman draws a salary.
“He’s the paid position, as opposed to us,” Scott says, smiling. “We’re just doing this out of the goodness of our hearts.”
To nominate a Person of the Week, contact Tom Conroy at t.conroy@Zip06.com.