Happy 2022 Brookfield! I hope you all spent wonderful holidays with those you love. Together we enjoyed two town tree lighting events, as well as our first town menorah lighting. A very special thank you to our Girl Scouts for a fantastic evening, along with Santa in Engine 4.
One of the highlights of my first few weeks was to recognize our NATIONAL CHAMPIONS! That’s right, our Brookfield Pop Warner cheerleaders won the National Championship, and so Chief Purcell and I hosted the girls in a parade through town, which ended with a recognition ceremony at town hall. I speak on behalf of all of Brookfield when I say we are beyond proud of our team and are so grateful for the coaches and families. Special thanks to Representative Steve Harding Jr. and Dr. John Barile for their participation, as well.
This being my first Spotlight, I want to recall the election for a moment and thank every citizen who voted and engaged in our political process. It is you, our residents, who make our town special, and we have incredible volunteers who work extremely hard to ensure our town is great and our children have a wonderful place to grow up. We also have an amazing staff across town who work daily to ensure our town is in tip top shape and is fully operational. I am still within my first 30 days in office, but already I can attest to the dedication our town staff demonstrates.
I’ve had the privilege of spending time with each of our department directors and the crew at DPW, the Fire Department, the Senior Center and Parks & Recreation. Our new Board of Selectmen consists of myself, Harry Shaker and Steve Dunn. In addition to a new BOS, Brookfield also has new Town Attorneys from a very experienced law firm, represented by Marino, Zabel & Schellenberg. Our thanks to Attorney Tom Beecher for his many years of service to the community.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing on many of our biggest challenges including: budget preparation, revaluation, blight, land use office reorganization, sewer moratorium, charter revision, legal matters, environmental issues, Streetscape, Greenway expansion, citizen concerns, potential town facilities (such as skate park, library, baseball fields), etc. On January 14, together with our town Controller, we will be finalizing our budget. The aim is a 0% increase.
During this time, I’ve also discovered that Brookfield owns four properties - two on conservation property at the Brookfield Nature Center and at the Gurski Homestead, one at Erickson Farm on Nabby Road, and one on Silvermine Road next to the Police Station. We are in the process of getting appraisals on the properties to determine market value.
I’ve been working in very close collaboration with Dr. Raymond Sullivan (our Director of Public Health) and Dr. John Barile (our Superintendent) who work tirelessly to keep our community healthy and our schools open. Having faced COVID for nearly two years, we all know the health safety measures and precautions available to all as we continue to navigate these turbulent times. Although we lost our contact tracer (the state took over contact tracing), we hired a new town nurse to help get back to the business of all that public health entails beyond just COVID.
I’ve also been working closely with our regional leaders in the WestCOG group, which includes 18 First Selectmen and Mayors of surrounding towns. I have meetings with Mayors Pete Bass (New Milford) and Dean Esposito (Danbury) and First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker (Bethel) in the coming days, who I'll continue to work closely with on issues directly related to Brookfield.
Jay Purcell, Chief of Police, will be retiring at the end of January 2022 after thirty-eight years of service with the Town of Brookfield as a Police Officer, Captain, Major, and the last five years as Chief of Police. We thank Jay for his outstanding service to our community and wish him health and happiness in his retirement.
I want to thank all of our newly elected and reelected board and committee members for being stalwart ambassadors to Brookfield. I look forward to working with you all toward our common goal of making our town better. If we haven’t met, please feel free to come introduce yourself next time you are in town hall ,or if you see me around town, please say hello, as I would love to meet you. Although municipal elections in CT are partisan, I believe that governance is not - my allegiance is always to Brookfield.
Finally, I want to thank Ginny Giovanniello. What many of you may not know, Ginny runs our front office and handles everything from media relations to executive scheduling to agendas and minute keeping to preparing this Spotlight every month, to name just a few. Ginny truly is the glue that keeps town hall together, and is an example of the many dedicated employees who work tirelessly behind the scenes.
My wish for you and our community is to enter the New Year in good health, counting our blessings and with peace in our hearts.
Yours in Service,
Tara Carr
First Selectman
