Submitted by Stephen Selbst, Old Greenwich
To the Editor
I am Stephen Selbst, and I am running for election to my third term on the Board of Estimate and Taxation. I currently serve on the Law and Audit committees. I also serve as one of the BET liaison members to The Nathaniel Witherell, and to the committee that negotiates the Town’s collective bargaining agreements with its unionized workers. In addition, I am a member of the Old Greenwich School Building Committee.
My wife and I have lived in Old Greenwich since 1993. We moved here when our children were young, drawn by the quality of life and the excellence of Greenwich public schools, which our three children attended and graduated from. I am also the past co-chair of the Old Greenwich Riverside Community Center and a past Commodore of the Rocky Point Club.
I practice law at Herrick, Feinstein LLP in New York, where I specialize in business bankruptcy and finance litigation. My experience in complex litigation and in negotiating budgets and settlements prepared me well for service on the BET.
While I strongly support the full platform adopted by the Democratic candidates for the BET, I want to emphasize my key goals for the upcoming term:
- Develop a long-range capital plan that reflects the needs of the Town and its residents and that avoids sharp increases in property taxes. Greenwich formerly had bi-partisan agreement on the Town’s capital priorities. But for the last four years, the Republican BET won’t even meet to discuss a long-term plan.
- Develop a climate resiliency plan for Greenwich. We need to assess our exposure and develop a strategy for addressing coming changes. Other towns and cities in Connecticut have developed such plans; we can look to them as starting points. And we do not have to do this alone: there are State of Connecticut grants available to underwrite a portion of the costs.
- Listen to our residents in formulating budgets. It’s wasteful and misguided to try to cram projects down the throats of unhappy residents. And it’s equally wrong not to listen when the community tells the BET it wants a program or budget funded.
There is much to love and admire about our community. I can say that as someone who chose to move here and make this my lifetime home. But we can never slip into complacency; there are areas where we can and must do better.
Please vote for all six Democrats for the BET. Let’s start establishing sensible budgets that meet the needs and wishes of Town residents while keeping taxes low.
Stephen Selbst