The Southbury Record

With less than two weeks until Election Day, Southbury’s Democratic candidates for the Board of Selectmen and First Selectman hosted a public question-and-answer forum Wednesday evening at the town’s Senior Center.

A room of over 40 people filled the community room to hear from Tim O’Neil, the party’s nominee for First Selectman, and Board of Selectman candidates Cathy De Carli, Kelly Keenan and Wendy Bernard.

O’Neil is challenging incumbent Jeff Manville in a rematch of the 2023 local election.

The hour-long forum was conversational, with residents posing questions on senior services, town finances, and the candidates’ long-term priorities. Candidates also spoke to the need for proactive leadership and more open communication from Town Hall.

Transparency and Leadership

O’Neil noted a “lack of transparency” in Board of Selectmen meetings, with items added late to agendas.

“If you look at it, a lot of the stuff is bundled into the consent agenda,” said O’Neil. “There’s no discussion on anything that went on there.”

He added that members of the opposition party are often privy to information that is kept from Democrats on the board. Members of the board are able to request an item be pulled from the consent agenda for further discussion – a move that, while rare, has been used to bring attention to certain issues.

“Unfortunately, it’s almost like we have a laissez-faire government here,” O’Neil said.

Bernard said to the crowd that being courageous and proactive is the way a leader should act, with a priority on making decisions that best suit where the town is going, rather than where it currently is.

“I spent 24 years in the military, and there was always a priority of looking forward and you can’t predict, but you can plan about what you think are going to be the priorities that are relevant to everyone that you’re leading,” said Bernard. “And I think there’s been a lot of cowardice in the way leadership has approached its responsibility in this town.”

In response to a question posed by a resident, O’Neil clarified his attendance record to both the Park and Recreation Commission and the Conservation Commission, to which he is the board’s liaison.

“It is true. I didn’t show up to many of the Conservation Commission meetings and the Park and Rec Commissions, unfortunately. I do work full-time, and I manage 14 properties,” said O’Neil.

“Not that I wasn’t interested in showing up to those meetings,” he later added. “It’s just, unfortunately, in the business that I’m in, I’m a certified property manager. I work for one of the largest property management companies in North America.”

O’Neil’s pointed to his attendance record at Board of Selectmen meetings, which he says he has missed only once, due to his son’s wedding.

Economic Development and Town Growth

Questions were raised about the economic development of Southbury, including how local leaders handled the defunding of the town’s Economic Development Director position.

“I think I consider our lack of a cohesive economic development strategy at the moment one of our greatest weaknesses,” Keenan, a secretary of the town’s Economic Development Commission, said.

“I think letting go of our Economic Development Director was incredibly short-sighted and doesn’t serve us well, so getting somebody back in that position would be a top priority,” she added.

Southbury’s Grand List had long been dominated by the tech giant, but with the former IBM campus being re-appraised at a much lower figure than it had historically been, a shortfall of approximately $850,000 in annual property tax value was met with subsequent cuts to the town’s initial budget.

That included a $95,000 cut to the former position that was filled by Kevin Bielmeier, who started in 2019. Bielmeier handed in his resignation letter on May 1 of this year.

De Carli, a current member of the Board of Finance who voted against the move to defund the position, echoed some of Keenan’s remarks.

“Technically, he wasn’t fired, but it was part of the budget process,” De Carli explained. “I didn’t think the way they were viewing his past was proper. I just think it was extremely short-sighted, and the way it was done was cruel.”

De Carli, who ran for a seat on the Board of Selectmen in 2019, fell just 43 votes shy of claiming a seat on the board that year.

“I like [Jeff Manville]; I think he’s a decent guy,” said De Carli. “I just don’t like how he runs the town.”

“A leader doesn’t say, ‘let’s see what happens,’ and he says that a lot,” she added. “That’s why I decided to go from the Board of Finance to running for the Board of Selectmen…I’m done watching.”

Affordability and Services

O’Neil pointed to other towns in the state that run senior transportation seven days a week and said that if other towns can do it, so should Southbury.

“There’s just no ifs, ands, or buts about it, in my opinion,” he said.

O’Neil added that he would look into addressing the needs of the town’s Senior Center, potentially seeing if it is understaffed.

The Southbury Senior Center, which recently reached the milestone of 1,000 members, was briefly placed on a four-day workweek schedule during a pilot program this summer.

While the number of operational hours and classes offered were not affected, the Board of Selectmen was initially split on whether to reopen the Senior Center on Fridays, before ultimately reaching a compromise of sorts to assign a floater position to assist in the Friday half-days.

Keenan described the programs offered by the town’s Parks and Recreation Department, Senior Services, as well as the Southbury Public Library, to be “at the heart of the community.”

“We should work to make them stronger and better for the citizens of this community versus scaling back, especially scaling back without real thought of how this is going to affect the taxpayers,” said Keenan.

Ballot Questions and Early Voter Turnout

O’Neil told the Record that he would be voting “no” on the first three ballot questions, but voting “yes” to the final “omnibus” question brought forward to voters this election cycle.

Bernard, a member of the town’s Zoning Commission, said she is against a merger of the separate Planning and Zoning boards, which is being put to voters this election season in the form of a ballot question.

As of 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, nearly 300 registered voters had already made their voices heard via early voting, according to the town’s Registrars of Voters.

In documents obtained by The Record, a tally shows that during the first three days of early voting, 270 residents cast their ballots.

Of those 270 residents, 160 were registered Democrats, 61 were registered Republicans, 45 were unaffiliated, and four belonged to other, smaller parties.

However, it is unclear how they voted.

The Record plans to publish candidate profiles starting next week, beginning with candidates running for the Board of Finance and the two land use boards in Planning and Zoning.