IPN Offers Voters First BOF Choice

To the Editor:

For the first time since it was formed eight years ago, your Board of Finance votes will matter this November. In the past, voters were offered six candidates to fill six seats, but this year there will be eight candidates. I am proud to run, with Bill McNerney, as part of the IPN team offering new leadership for our town.

Four out of the six members of the BOF have held office since its inception in 2002. A fifth has been there since 2004. The chairman was even part of the board’s precursor, the Legislative Council’s Finance Subcommittee, for many years as well. These men are to be commended for their service to the town, but surely government functions better when there is greater diversity of participation.

Indeed, IPN formed two years ago because the Old Guard was no longer serving the town’s interests effectively. Transparency and accountability were not a priority. The checks and balances that were supposed to be provided by dividing authority between the Board of Selectmen, Legislative Council, and Board of Finance (BOF) were failing, as each tended to rubber stamp the others’ decisions. Meanwhile, a divisive, adversarial approach dominated the relationship between these entities and the Board of Education.

How striking that the two parties have chosen to cross-endorse, rather than oppose, one another’s BOF candidates this year! It reflects the larger pattern the Old Guard has demonstrated for consolidating power among a few individuals from each party, who then work hand in glove to pursue their narrow vision of what is best for the town. The vigor with which they have attacked IPN (but not each other!) even as they begin to adopt some of the language and ideas we introduced, is further testimony to their desire to maintain control at the expense of a vibrant democracy.

The BOF wields great power in our system. It is extremely hard to put forward a budget or bond issue without gaining its approval. The recent struggles to approve the high school expansion made clear the board’s key role in the most basic political decisions we face. And while the lack of a comprehensive long range plan for the town, developed with vigorous citizen participation and integrating the needs of the schools, municipal services and Fairfield Hills into a single guiding vision, has left the BOF without a roadmap, we are asked to believe that the system is functioning well.

The BOF is at the very heart of the decisionmaking process that determines how much you are taxed and how that money is spent. Yet it has suited the Old Guard to suggest that it is somehow not a political body. Meanwhile our “small town” has grown to become a $100 million per year enterprise. It’s time for the new leadership and vision offered by IPN, where the challenges we face as a municipality are openly embraced and innovative solutions are sought to best serve the interest of all residents.

Ben Roberts

IPN Candidate for Board of Finance

19 Farrell Road, Newtown                                    September 9, 2009