Sharon's selectman candidates meet in lively debate

SHARON — A standing-room only crowd of about 90 people gathered at Town Hall on Friday night to take part in a forum with candidates for selectmen. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 3, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Town Hall.

The forum was organized by Marshall Miles and National Public Radio station WHDD-FM91.9 (robinhoodradio.com). The station, co-owned by Miles and Jill Goodman, is in a town-owned building next to Town Hall.

In his introductory remarks, Miles said he was surprised by the large turnout for the 7 p.m. event.

"I had dinner reservations for 8 p.m.," he joked, "but I canceled them when I saw how many people were here."

Sharon is one of four Northwest Corner towns that has a contested election for the Board of Selectmen. In Falls Village and Cornwall, three incumbents are unopposed for the three board seats. In Salisbury and Kent, there are two candidates for first selectman; in North Canaan, there are three candidates for the two selectman seats, but incumbent first selectman Doug Humes is unopposed.

Sharon is the only town in the state where the unsuccessful first selectman candidate cannot be bumped down to the regular board if he or she has enough votes. The Sharon first selectman candidates are Democrat Tom Bartram, who has been a selectman since the early 1990s, and Republican Bob Loucks, who has served on many boards and committees but has not yet been a selectman.

The unopposed candidates for the board are guaranteed a seat. They are Democrat Meg Szalewicz and Republican incumbent John Mathews.

The two candidates for first selectman were invited to speak for 10 minutes each, and then to offer rebuttals to comments made by their opponent.

Opening comments from Bob Loucks

Loucks won the coin toss and went first, beginning with a list of the many committees he has served on, including six years as chairman of the Region One Board of Education. He has also served on building committees at Sharon Center School and Housatonic Valley Regional High School. For seven years he was vice chairman of the Board of Finance and he has owned a business in Sharon for 35 years. Loucks noted later in the evening that he grew up in Sharon, served in the Navy and immediately returned home and went to work. He is an electrician and also owns several properties around town.

In his comments, and in his campaign, Loucks focused on the degeneration of Sharon’s roads, bridges and culverts. Simple repairs were not made over the years and now costly overhauls are required.

"Roads and bridges are a serious matter of public safety," he said, pointing out that they are not only traveled by motorists, but also used by school buses, fire trucks and ambulances.

The first selectman is responsible for preparing the town budget to present to the Board of Finance, he noted. It will be his goal to find ways to keep the infrastructure sound and functioning while keeping taxes low.

He also stressed the importance of creating affordable housing to attract young people to town.

"They are our lifeblood" and the backbone of the town’s volunteer services, especially the all-volunteer fire department and ambulance squad.

A vital town center and business environment are also needed to attract families, he said. A new and viable tenant is urgently needed for the former Trotta’s market space, which has been empty for nearly a year. He also stressed the importance of small markets and said several times during the evening that Sharon residents shouldn’t have to drive to another town for essentials such as food and hardware.

He promised to have an open-door policy as first selectman and said, "Come to see me and we’ll solve your problems." He also stressed that he will be a nonpartisan town leader and said voters should "drop the words Democrat and Republican from your vocabularies. We all need to work together."

Opening comments from Tom Bartram

Born and raised in Sharon, Bartram has spent most of his life here and has volunteered at many levels since graduating college in Lowell, Mass. He has been a selectman since the 1990s and has been on the standing building committee at the high school. He is now part of a group that is working to convert the former Clarke Wood agriculture education center at the school into a science and technology education center.

When he returned here after college, married and began to build his own family and his own home, he experienced firsthand the need for affordable housing. The town needs to offer housing at a variety of price levels, for incomes of different levels, he said.

After marrying, he began a career in the building industry (he is now at Herrington’s in Lakeville but will scale down his work hours so he can spend more time at Town Hall as first selectman, if elected). His experience working with product suppliers and building professionals has taught him the importance of good planning and using quality products, he said.

He also stressed the importance of attracting young people to town with jobs, housing and a vibrant town center. A fire company volunteer himself, he noted that the force is aging and that he and other firefighters, while experienced and knowledgeable, are not able to vigorously perform some of the tasks they could do when they were in their 20s.

Regional cooperation is essential, he noted. As examples, he cited the regional school district (Sharon is one of six towns in the district) and the shared Sharon-Salisbury transfer station.

Green energy is becoming increasingly important and he vowed to help move municipal properties as well as privately owned properties move into a more energy-efficient future.

Rebuttals

Bartram spent a few minutes disputing Loucks’ comments about the town’s infrastructure. Fingers shouldn’t be pointed, he said, because the infrastructure has been unraveling for decades, not just months or years. Repair work was not done because the town wanted to save money and keep taxes low, he said; Sharon has one of the lowest mill rates in the state at 10.35.

His opponent has said many times that Salisbury was able to repair several bridges without increasing property taxes because officials there took advantage of state grants that are no longer available. Bartram said he believes the reason the state budget is in the poor condition it is in now is because of grant programs such as that, which allowed bridges to be repaired at no extra cost to town residents.

Loucks responded by saying that the town has spent a great deal of money on studies and reports when that money would have been better spent on repairs.

He added, "The money we’ve spent repairing misused town equipment would have gone a long way toward repairing the roads, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about what’s in the state budget."

Mathews and Szalewicz introduce themselves

In his opening comments, Mathews stressed that the town is growing and evolving and that town residents need to come up with a vision for what the future should look like. "We have to be careful where we go from here." Sharon residents, he believes, do not want their town to become a tourist destination, like Kent or Millerton. "We’re a quiet community." However, he noted, the town’s economy needs a boost.

The selectmen, he said, need to listen to ideas from town residents and then "move forward prudently." He complimented the town crew, which he described as capable, and said the next board will decide what work can be done by the town and what needs to be outsourced. "These are your tax dollars and we need to spend them as wisely as we can."

Szalewicz introduced herself as a person with experience with nonprofit agencies and noted that Sharon has several unique organizations in town such as TriArts, Audubon and Women’s Support Services.

"Nonprofits bring richness to a town at minimal cost to taxpayers," she said.

She stressed the importance of cooperation among town boards, commissions and other entities and said that her strength is her ability to bring people together and find common ground.

"I am a team player and my role in part will be to facilitate team efforts."

She also stressed the importance of good planning and said, "We can’t look at the past and shake fingers, we have to move forward."

Questions from the media

Two reporters from area newspapers took part in the forum. The first questions were posed by Shaw Israel Izikson from The Lakeville Journal.

1) How can town leaders improve the infrastructure but still keep taxes low when the economy is in bad shape and state and federal grants are not available?

Bartram reiterated an earlier comment made by Loucks that the bond for the 1992 school renovation will be paid off by 2012 and that will leave more funds available for other work.

Loucks noted that the collection rate for property taxes is about 98.3 percent and "as long as that continues, we’ll be able to pay our bills." He criticized the current board for spending so much money on studies and reports. The town crew built many of the roads and bridges in town, he noted; they can certainly repair them.

Bartram said that, in his years in the building industry, he has found that studies are essential, especially engineering studies.

2) How will you bring businesses to town?

Loucks said he will work with other town boards and commissions to loosen some of the restrictions that can limit businesses. For example, businesses are not allowed to list their phone numbers on their signs. " We don’t have to destroy our town to make it more business-friendly. All the other area towns are doing OK."

Bartram agreed that the regulations should be relaxed and he specified some business-friendly jobs that might be done such as repairing the sidewalk outside the package store and florist on West Main Street. Additional parking could also be added behind Town Hall, with a walkway to West Main.

3) How will you get the selectmen — and the other boards and commissions — to work together?

Bartram reiterated his concerns about the regulations and repeated that if everyone can get on the same page, there are ways to entice new businesses. Loucks noted that he owns several properties in town and he has a vested interest in keeping the town healthy, productive and self-supporting.

Other media

The next question was posed by reporter Jim Moore from the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. He questioned how the selectmen can get the other boards and commissions to agree to loosen their regulations and he asked how "big" they feel Sharon should become.

"I don’t want to see a McDonald’s or a Burger King here," Loucks said. "I want to see little stores with the things we need, a hardware store, a grocery store. We won’t overbuild here; we have regulations that will keep that from happening."

Bartram spoke specifically and at length about repair work that should be done to Murtagh Road behind the shopping plaza, which was a gravel path when he was a boy. And he also spoke of the sidewalk repairs and parking issues relating to West Main.

Audience questions

1) Margaret Keilty and Mark LaMonica own a home on King Hill Road that has suffered from excessive water damage. The selectmen have not yet begun work to drain the water from the property, and Keilty asked when the work would finally be done.

"As soon as possible," Loucks said. He said the money that has been spent so far on engineering studies would have been better spent on installing some drainage pipes on her land to carry the water to a nearby brook.

Bartram disagreed and said that the engineering studies are in fact essential. He noted that he has heard Keilty’s problem grow over the years from something that could have been a simple maintenance job; now, he noted, "We have to rip the whole thing out."

2) Fred Schwerin asked why the town is the only one in the state where the first selectman candidate cannot be bumped down to the regular board.

Bartram explained that a regulation was voted in many years ago when there were two candidates for first selectman and four candidates for selectman.

"The selectman candidates were at a mathematical disadvantage," he said. "People got upset about that and proposed an ordinance saying you either get the job or you don’t." Bartram had supported the plan, even though it affected his own candidacy at the time. Several people had suggested he propose a change to the regulation this year but, he said, "You can’t change the rules whenever you want to." Also, he noted, the jobs of selectman and first selectman are very different.

"I’m fine with it," he said of the possibility that he might end up off the board altogether. "I’m either going to win or I’m going to ride off into the sunset after 16 years. I think the way we do it is a pretty good way."

Loucks added a bit of additional history and also commented, "In some countries when you have an opponent, you just shoot ’em. I think we have a much better system."

3) Harding Bancroft asked the candidates whether they favor creating affordable housing in clusters (like Sharon Ridge) or if they prefer to create affordable opportunities in different spots around town.

Loucks gave his support to Sharon Ridge but said he also would like to see affordable housing spread through the village. If some houses are repossessed by the town because of unpaid back taxes, he suggested, those properties might be offered to young families and low-income residents.

4) Howard Fuhr asked about the town’s Web site.

A Web site is a powerful tool, Bartram said, and Sharon’s Web site is antiquated. The town clerk has said she would like to completely replace it. Bartram said, "If I’m elected, that might be a committee we start right away."

Loucks suggested hiring a separate Web specialist to maintain the site. The town clerk is overburdened already because she has to record all the births and deaths at Sharon Hospital, "so she has more work than other town clerks." A Web site is important not only for full-time residents but also for part-time residents, who aren’t always able to attend weekday meetings here.

5) Dale Jones asked about development.

Bartram said that the chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission told him that people used to always come up to him and say, "Don’t change anything." But in the past year, people have been coming to him and saying, "Change everything." Although Sharon shouldn’t become a tourist town like Kent, there are attractions here such as Audubon and TriArts. "We should capitalize on them for the sake of our businesses."

Final words

After the last questions were asked, the first selectman candidates wrapped up the evening with a few comments. Loucks promised "plain talk and hard work" and said, "We can do better and we will do better."

"All four of us are here because we love this town and want what’s best for it," Bartram said. His family has been here for four generations and has a tradition of civic service. "It’s been a pleasure. Three of the four of us are going to do a fine job for you."

The forum ended at 8:40 p.m. Miles said that a video of the evening will be available sometime this weekend at public access television station CATV-6.