Pat Llodra Logs Her First 100 Days As First Selectman

By John Voket

(This is the first of a two-part interview with First Selectman Pat Llodra on the occasion of her first 100 days in office.)

Looking back on her first 100 days in office, First Selectman Pat Llodra was pleased to report that she was blessed with something of a respite on Day 101.

“Don’t say it too loud, but it’s pretty quiet,” Mrs Llodra said as she settled down for a 45-minute interview that touched on a range of subjects including the town’s financial landscape, school district challenges, the future of Fairfield Hills, and her hopes for the future of the community she has called home for nearly 40 years.

She won her current seat about a month before taking over Newtown’s top elected office December 1, defeating two challengers — Gary Fetzer, a former selectman and the Democrat’s endorsed contender, and Bruce Walczak, a police commissioner and chairman of the Independent Party of Newtown.

Typical of her fastidious nature, Mrs Llodra said she used the request for an interview on the occasion of her 100th day in office as an exercise and opportunity to check herself.

And she came prepared with a list of accomplishments that included changes to the way the town presents fiscal information in both the budget development and the town’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) projections; a proposal to move the town to self-insured employee benefits; a revenue monitoring practice that resulted in an historic January budget amendment; a process refinement in how the Board of Selectmen solicit and appoint board and commission volunteers; the initiation of a Fairfield Hills Master Plan review; introduction of a program for facilities assessment; utilizing the current budget process as the starting point for dedicated long-range planning; and influencing a new era of collaboration between town and school leaders in the areas of insurance, energy conservation, and capital planning.

Conversely, her interview was significantly less structured, with numerous candid comments and several silent pauses as she formed her thoughts in response to questions.

“In 100 days has felt like a blur, it has gone so fast,” she began. “But the pace has been pretty intense.”

Mrs Llodra said many of the issues she handled or influenced in that short period reflect who she is as a person, and how she thinks about leadership.

She said that many of the goals she has pursued were rooted in the fundamental questions she asked herself, as she entertained a transition from a two-term seat on the Legislative Council, where she served as chair of the influential Education Committee, to a possible campaign for first selectman.

The first selectman pointed out that her first challenge was “struggling with the CIP,” which was returned to the newly elected Board of Selectmen by the Board of Finance in consideration of its new members, fellow Republican Will Rodgers and William Furrier, a Republican who ran on the IPN ticket.

That renewed deliberation was aided by a document that broke capital requests down by function, versus exclusively by chronology and cost, in order “to get a handle on the big picture, and the long-term goal of those functions,” while learning more about the various department heads’ vision for those capital project outcomes.

“Maybe it’s because I am and always will be an educator — so that’s just the way I think,” she added.

The ‘A-Ha Moments’

Mrs Llodra admitted after serving one term on the council under each of the previous two first selectmen — Herb Rosenthal and Joe Borst — that an idea about long-range planning was among her first “a-ha moments” as she transitioned into the town’s top office herself.

“In developing the budget I began to see it as a tool we can use to help be better planners,” she said. “Those are powerful tools, the budget and CIP, and the first selectman has very few tools to use to be an effective and better planner.”

Another revelation came as she and her board deliberated the process of appointing boards and commissions.

“I always used to read in the paper who was appointed, and I never really thought about that,” she said. “But I never had a reason to look at that in the big picture — to what extent are we really making that process public, making sure there is wide access and opportunity for people to contribute, and reaching out to persons who hadn’t considered it before or hadn’t been eligible because it was such a narrow process.”

She said the response has been very broad, and she is pleased to see the diversity of talent that has come forward requesting the opportunity to serve the community as a whole.

Mrs Llodra was candid when asked about the tipping point between her apparent style of seeking broad consensus on critical issues before making a recommendation or offering an opinion, and the need to occasionally act quickly in her capacity as the town’s top elected leader when an opportunity to tap multiple opinions and recommendations may not present itself.

“To me, so far, that consideration to seek consensus has been instinctive. I’ve expressed before that I am very Lincolnesque when looking at past government figures,” she said. “The challenge to lead and heed are equally balanced. To heed means I need to now what the constituency expects as the outcome — not necessarily all the process pieces...but where are we going. Then it’s my job to lead the community in that direction.

“It can’t be about me personally. It has to be about my role as a representative for the greater good of this community.”

As such, she said she will almost always seek as many voices as possible before making a decision.

“Then I will pursue that path with great vigor — it’s when I put on the leader hat. I understand the way to go and how to get there, and hopefully I will bring along as many people as possible,” she said. “I cast a wide net — I collect as much information as I need to collect, and I talk to as many people as I need to talk with, and [formulate] how I think we need to proceed. Once I come to that decision, I remain pretty confident about what I need to do.”

The final part of First Selectman Pat Llodra’s first 100 days interview will appear in next week’s edition of The Newtown Bee.