I am a candidate for the Seymour Board of Selectmen.
I’m also a homeowner and taxpayer in town, so I listened with great interest to the Zani Imetovski interview on Oct. 12.
Mr. Imetovski, in an often rambling and incoherent exchange, revealed very little in terms of substantive policy ideas for Seymour. He did, however, cast a light on his general lack of experience, lack of understanding of town government, and inability or unwillingness to answer pointed questions about his “plans.”
Mr. Imetovski claimed that he’ll use his “bully pulpit” to demand budgetary changes.
In Seymour, the First Selectman can only recommend changes to the Board of Finance, which has complete control over the budget making process. The First Selectman has no direct authority over that process or leverage with the Board of Finance members. There is no “bully pulpit.”
Mr. Imetovski declined to point to any specific areas where he would cut spending, instead stating that we need to improve revenues through better “marketing” and “branding” of the town to spur economic development.
What is Mr. Imetovski’s idea to attract new business? He wants to develop an economic development plan. Surprise! Seymour already has one, developed and updated regularly by a non-partisan economic development commission. It’s readily accessible on the town’s website. I encourage him to take a look at it if he wants to run our town.
One of his running mates proposed that Seymour should “invest” in gigabit Internet service. It wasn’t clear if he proposed to install this service on every street or just selected areas such as the Industrial Park, but for argument’s sake let’s assume the less expensive option of running it just to the Industrial Park.
Under Kurt Miller’s leadership, the Town has already looked into this option and found that it would cost the taxpayers over $1 million. There was no mention of how this would be paid for.
Experience matters.
With experience you learn that you can’t simply spend your way to prosperity. You learn that it takes a lot more than three years of experience on the Democratic Town Committee to run a town.
You learn that you can’t “bring the community together” if you yourself have never actually been a leader in that community. In eight years I’ve served on five different boards, yet I’ve seen Mr. Imetovski show up to one meeting, tellingly after he was a candidate. How does he plan to lead our town?
We have an experienced and proven leader right now who has made Seymour a better place than it was when he took office.
We’ve paved more roads in the last three years than Seymour did in the previous twenty years.
We’ve rebuilt the fund balance and the bond rating, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We’ve renegotiated the employee contracts and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We’ve attracted new businesses, streamlined government, finished the long-stalled Tingue Dam project, and moved Seymour forward.
Kurt Miller is the leader we need.
Experience matters.
The writer is a Republican incumbent running for re-election to the Seymour Board of Selectmen.
