Reprinted from The Trumbull Times © Copyright 2009
April 2, 2009

After spending 20 minutes listening to First Selectman Ray Baldwin's State of the Town presentation, Timothy Herbst delivered a six-word summation.

"Damage control," he said. "It was well-crafted, politically driven damage control."

Herbst joined fellow Republicans Mark Smith, Carl Massaro and Bill Crooks among the group of town employees, Democratic officials and business representatives at the Tuesday morning talk at the Tashua Knolls banquet hall.

Following the speech, he spent a few minutes presenting the GOP side of the town's situation, commenting on finances, the high school renovation and economic development.

Herbst called the speech more campaign than State of the Town, and labeled the event an early chance to mold and shape public opinion before the election season gets underway.

"This was a first selectman who wants to get re-elected," Herbst said.

Herbst took exception to Baldwin's comments that some in town had politicized the $73 million high school renovation.

"If the community is divided, it's because the administration has done a less-than-adequate job of explaining the benefits of the project to the public," he said. "Many people are confused, and there still are unanswered questions."

For example, Herbst said it was inconceivable that the renovation includes an 1,100-seat auditorium and $5 million for a free-standing swimming pool but does not provide for new lockers for the students.

"I happened to be inside the school the other day, and I walked past my old locker," Herbst said. "The top door was still ripped out, and you could still see my initials scratched inside. So it's at least 11 years since they even got a coat of paint."

Though lockers are hardly a necessity for a quality education, Herbst said the oversight pointed out seemingly misplaced priorities.

Creating and prioritizing a comprehensive list of the school building needs is key when the town's elementary and middle schools are as old as the high school and due to be renovated themselves in the fairly near future, he said.

"I understand that the elementary schools are smaller than Trumbull High and don't require the same level of modern technology, but taken together, the cumulative costs of what we need to do at Jane Ryan, Booth Hill, Middlebrook and Tashua schools, all of which are older than Trumbull High, can get prohibitive without comprehensive planning,"" he said.

Fiscal picture

Herbst called Baldwin's description of Trumbull's finances "highly misleading."

"The picture wouldn't be so rosy if the town was fully funding its pension fund," he said. "We only fund the pension obligation at 28%, which is the lowest in the region. Why are we just now hearing about a plan, after eight years and four terms as first selectman?"

Baldwin has proposed earmarking 25% of future Grand List growth to fund the pensions, a proposal Herbst scorned.

"Six of the last seven years, we either had no growth or negative growth," he said. "We're going to bank our pension fund on Grand List growth every year when it has only grown one year out of the last seven?"

But Grand List growth is crucial to Baldwin's plan to increase pension funding and limit tax hikes to 3%. Last year, faced with a shrinking Grand List, Baldwin blasted the Planning & Zoning Commission as excessively restrictive when businesses were looking to relocate to town. This year, with an increasing Grand List, most of the praise went to the Economic Development Commission.

Herbst, the Planning & Zoning chairman, objected to the double standard.

"Last year, he laid blame for the Grand List not growing on our shoulders and pointed to the Planning & Zoning Commission as the reason for the large tax increase," he said. "This year, with 1.6% growth, he praises a citizen's advisory commission. Sure, the EDC does a lot of good work, but how do we get the blame when the Grand List shrinks and none of the credit when it grows?"

Though the economic situation across the nation has had its effect on Trumbull, Herbst said the roots of the fiscal problems in town go much deeper than the last year.

"The pension problem is symbolic in that it was neglected for years to produce artificially balanced budgets," he said. "The current economic crisis didn't create the financial problems we have, it exposed them."