Submitted by Peter Bernstein. The author is the former Chair of the Greenwich Board of Education
Despite the lies and half-truths, the evidence is clear – the current and future slate of BET Republicans refuse to spend money on things the town needs. Whether it is funding to replace aging fire trucks, modern police communications, or replacing or updating schools, the BET Republicans hold steadfast in their unshaken belief that these are wants and have repeatedly exercised the tiebreaking chair vote to block necessary spending.
They refuse to find middle ground, do not care about facts, nor are they responsive to the public. Without question, they have lost their ability to lead and continually fail to discharge their responsibilities to voters. The current slate of candidates from the extremist Republican Town Committee is even worse. It is time to make a change.
Lest people forget, it was the BET who requested that the Greenwich Public Schools hire an external firm to conduct an in-depth survey of all the town’s school buildings. This master plan – now five years old – detailed the immediate and long term needs of our aging buildings. When confronted with the stark fact that the town was vastly underfunding maintenance and that some of our buildings need major work, the Republican BET members disavowed any responsibility to rectify the situation before it became worse.
Take the case of Central Middle School, which was condemned and temporarily closed due to structural concerns. The Republican BET members claimed they support replacing it; they just do not want to pay for a modern school that will last another 60+ years. Instead, they wanted to substitute their judgment over construction professionals, the independent building committee (appointed by the Republican-led Selectmen and approved by the RTM) and the Board of Education, while knowing that every day this project is delayed raises the cost even more.
They quibbled with the budget arrived at by the construction professionals and clung to a lower placeholder number for dear life. Because of the projected cost of construction, the Republican BET members challenged the size of the school. The size was set by a bi-partisan decision by the Board of Education based on teaching models. When was the last time the BET did something in a bi-partisan manner?
That’s not even the end of the story. The Republican BET members played games with the capital budget process and continue to overstep their role as defined by the town charter. They secured a legal opinion that changed the rules and calls into question the process used for every previous town project. This bogus opinion was nothing more than a shameful delay tactic that hampers the towns’ ability to seek reimbursement from the state.
Only when the Planning and Zoning Commission recently granted municipal improvement status, and under immense pressure from the community with the impending election, did the BET finally take a vote on the merits of the funding for Central.
Even then, the incumbent Republication BET members running for reelection refused to vote for the project after touting their support in the last election. It only passed when the two Republican members coming off the BET took one for the team and voted to approve the project, making it look like they all fully supported the project.
Even so, RTC members attacked them betraying the other Republican BET members while the RTC itself praised the funding as a “Job Well Done” even as their members sought to delay and downscale the project.
Beyond Central, the Republican BET members also forced a smaller, less-secure entry way to the high school because the original construction bids came in higher than they were willing to fund. In addition, they have repeatedly denied funding for the Old Greenwich School project – again causing delays which will increase cost and put state reimbursement at risk.
To deflect responsibility, they frame this as Democrats calling to increase spending and raise taxes. That’s a red herring. It is really about financial leadership and planning given that our town has adequate funding to accomplish what it needs over time. For me it comes down to this question – where is our long-range planning? The fact is it doesn’t exist under longstanding Republican rule and the absence of a proper financial planning model for capital projects speaks to lack of leadership. Instead, the Republican led BET plays Groundhog Day and votes year after year with no real sense of what’s coming in the long-term pipeline and often pits project against project.
This is not just on the capital side of the budget. They openly challenge operating budgets submitted by town departments and the schools even when they come in at the recommended BET budget guidelines. Republican BET members chip away at the school budget annually under the false premise that enrollment is trending down. The reality is that there are almost 200 more students registered for the Greenwich Public Schools this year than projected with half of those in kindergarten. In their typical shortsighted way, they did not listen when told that people moved to town with small children during Covid, leaving the schools to serve more students with more needs with less funding. This is not a sustainable model.
As I’ve written before, I am a proponent of voting person over party and implore people to stop voting straight across a party line. Find those candidates that listen to the will of the community, work to find consensus, are respectful to those who might have a different opinion and are willing to stand up for what they believe in even in the face of party pressure.
In this upcoming election there is not a single Republican BET candidate that will get my vote. Neither the incumbents nor new candidates have demonstrated what I believe are the requirements for a successful public official. This is a first for me and a sad day for the state of the Republican party in Greenwich.
Why is this important? Because the current system allows the each political party to nominate six “candidates” to serve as their slate for the BET. They will all be automatically elected. The only open question is which party gets to hold the chair of the BET and wield the all-powerful tie-breaking vote that comes with that role. That question gets answered by which political party gets more votes – determined by the total votes of all of the six candidates from each party. This should be simple math – there are more unaffiliated voters (39.2%) and registered Democrats (30.3%) in Greenwich than there are registered Republicans (28.8%). Yet, Republicans have held the chair and tiebreaking vote of the BET in all but two years it the past one hundred years of the BET. Changing that stranglehold starts with getting out to vote.
As an aside – don’t be taken in by the ridiculous Republican BET signs and online ads saying “Keep local control of zoning,” “Vote to save our neighborhoods,” and “Stop the high-rises.” The BET is a finance board and has absolutely nothing to do with zoning. My personal favorite is the “Build our Schools Vote for all 6 BET Republicans.” Laughable considering the reality. Once again, the Greenwich RTC media machine is trying to scare people with their lies. It’s just another example of their despicable behavior and attempts to cling to power.
If you are an unaffiliated voter or fellow Republican and would rather not vote for the Democrat’s BET slate then I would implore you to not vote for a single Republican BET candidate as it will only allow them to keep playing dangerous games with our town. Send a message to the extremist Greenwich RTC. Let your protest to the politics of division, lies and obstruction be heard. It’s time for us to get back to being Greenwich.
Above all, don’t forget to vote.
Note: The deadline to submit letters to the editor about candidates in the Nov 7 municipal election was Oct 30, 2023