Effective training ground

By Scott Benjamin

BETHEL – Tough Tommy Meskill was mayor of New Britain at age 33, served in Congress during the Johnson Great Society and the Nixon New Federalism and is one of only four Republicans to be elected governor since Connecticut adopted a four-year term in 1950.

Friends say he insisted his toughest job was being mayor.

Residents would rather eat stale tuna salad for two months than pay their property taxes.

They tell the mayor during spring budget season that they want their road repaved and then heave him out of office in the November election because the tax mill rates increased.

Matt Knickerbocker, who has a master’s degree in Public Administration from Post University in Waterbury, says there is a public-sector job that’s tougher than being mayor: first selectman.

He should know. Knickerbocker was first selectman of Bethel for 13 years and the town administrator to the first selectman of Wilton for three years after that. He currently is Bethel’s town treasurer.

“Mayors have more executive authority,” Knickerbocker said in an interview with Patch.com. “A first selectman has to get approvals from the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance and the land-use agencies. They’re forced to sell concepts in a bipartisan way.”

“If you listen to the comments at a Western Connecticut Council of Governments [regional planning association] meeting, most of the time you can’t tell if it is a Democrat or a Republican speaking,” Knickerbocker asserted.

Knickerbocker chaired committees on that body and was president of the Connecticut Council Of Small Towns.

In many cities, the mayor gets the budget approved through the City Council. In the towns, the first selectman works with the other selectmen and the Board of Finance to get a proposed budget to referendum and the voters consider it. Often there is a difference between ability to pay property taxes and willingness to pay property taxes.

People driving Audis vote “No” with an exclamation point at budget referendums.

Knickerbocker was speaking about municipal budgets some years ago at a National League Of Cities conference and officials from other states were “surprised” that his town held a budget referendum.

He commented, “It doesn’t happen as much nationally as it does in Connecticut.”

But Knickerbocker is seeking a new job, as a legislator. He is the Democratic nominee in the 32^nd state Senate District, where he will face Eric Berthel of Watertown, the five-term Republican incumbent, in the November 3 election.

The Democrats haven ‘t bought out the beer and pretzels in that district since 1891, 29 years before the first radio station went on the air.

So how does being a municipal chief elected official prepare you for the State Capitol, where there are caucuses, lobbyists and protests in front of the big golden dome?

“In a perfect world all legislators would be former first selectman,” Knickerbocker remarked. “A lot of legislators don’t fully understand the impact their votes have on municipalities, such as with mandates.”

He is running in a district with 12 municipalities that stretch through three counties. There are people in Seymour within running distance of their job at Hubbell Industrial Park who have never ordered a three-egg Omelet at the Stony Hill Diner in Bethel.

Every state senator elected in the 32^nd District since 1972 has lived in metro Waterbury - either Southbury, Woodbury or Watertown.

Knickerbocker says to win, he has to capture those medium-sized suburbs to the East.

Knickerbocker spokesman Trip Holtgrewe of Blue Edge Strategies said that their model projects that as many unaffiliated registrants as Republicans will vote in the 32^nd District this fall. He said there has been an “overwhelmingly negative” reaction to Republican President Donald Trump in Connecticut, which was indicated last November when some municipalities flippered Democratic.

Holtgrewe said Democratic turnout is projected to be higher than usual in the state for a midterm election.

On issues, Knickerbocker said at the top of his long legal pad is Republican Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

Knickerbocker said voters “tell” him, “ ‘ why discuss it when you’re not seeking federal office.’ “

Knickerbocker counters, “We are suffering from those cuts. About 50,000 people could lose health care completely. Morally, I think the state has to step forward.”

He applauds Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) for helping produce eight consecutive budget surpluses and paying down a state-employee pension debt that was 29 percent funded just eight years ago that is now more than 60 percent funded.

However, he is not endorsing either Lamont or his challenger – state Rep. Josh Elliott (D-88) of Hamden - in the August 11 primary.

“I like both of them,” Knickerbocker said. “Josh is bringing younger voters into the Democratic Party fold.”

In Connecticut, primaries are less popular than building a retractable dome at Fenway Park.

But Knickerbocker said the Democrats will receive more news and social media coverage through the summer and if the Lamont and Elliott campaigns join forces for the general election, they would become a formidable force.

He added that he agrees with Elliott that taxes should be increased on the top one percent.

“Those people are not going to leave the state,” explained Knickerbocker. “The results we’ve seen in other states bear that out. A generation ago the wealthy paid a lot more than they do now as a percentage of their income. It helped pay for roads, bridges and hospitals.”

He said he reluctantly agrees with Lamont’s plan to have a temporary gas tax suspension in response to the surge in prices from Operation Epic Fury in Iran.

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Knickerbocker explained. “But we have to recognize that we’re in a state that can’t provide more money for public education and other important services.”

He said he also is “a big fan” of former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex), who was governor for eight years immediately before Lamont took office in 2019.

Keith Phaneuf, the budget reporter for CT Mirror, has said that the state employee pensions were structurally under-funded each year from 1939 through 2010.

Knickerbocker remarked, “Malloy didn’t dodge the pension issues, He paid the money to structurally fully fund the pensions He insisted on being responsible.”

However, Knickerbocker said he opposes elected officials seeking “retroactive concessions” from public employees, as Rhode Island instituted more than a decade ago.

He said, “People made agreements and they should be carried out.”

Knickerbocker said when he was elected first selectman in 2009, Bethel’s pensions were 35 percent funded and when he departed in 2022, they were 95 percent funded.

Knickerbocker added that he “wasn’t a fan” of Malloy “suggesting that the town’s pay a portion of the public-school teachers’ pensions, which would put enormous pressure on the municipal budgets.”

The state has funded those pensions since 1939.

Knickerbocker said part of the reason that Malloy, who did not seek a third term, was not as popular as Lamont is that he went against the grain of the Democratic Party and froze the wages of state employees and sought higher standards for entering the teaching profession.

He acknowledged that Lamont failed to enact two of his most sweeping plans – tolls and the infrastructure to convert entirely to electric vehicles by 2035.

Knickerbocker said, “I was hopeful [the tolls] would pass. Connecticut is a pass-through state” with signs posted in other states directing traffic along Interstate-84 because there are no tolls in Connecticut.

He said the move toward electric vehicles was “premature,” but predicted that it “will happen someday.”

On a separate topic, Knickerbocker, a former chairman of Bethel’s Board of Education, said he supports banning smart phones in public schools.

“When you look at school performance, we’re struggling to get it back to where it was before the pandemic,” he declared. “ Any educator will look at the studies and comment on the decline in performance and the increase and the increase in mental health issues in young people is directly attributable to those devices.”

In higher education, the Board of Regents colleges have experienced slight enrollment increases recently, but are nowhere near the levels of 20 years ago.

Wouldn’t it be fair to the taxpayers to have them downsized?

Regarding Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, which has had two campuses since 1982, Knickerbocker said, “I’ve always wondered if I was 18 years old, would that be a place I would go. I don’t think the way the college is aligned now is conducive to that, with the split between two areas. It would make sense to have the university at the West Side campus.”

He said he supports having towns install speed cameras.

“One of the most often heard complaints when I was first selectman was, ‘You’ve got to do something about people speeding on my road.’ I think they are an effective safety tool. Most roads don’t have sidewalks and they are hilly, curvy with limited sight,” Knickerbocker exclaimed.

Berthel stated via e-mail, “Speed cameras absolutely provide direct revenue, not necessarily value, to municipalities that install them, but at what cost?”

“Do they actually reduce speeding in the zones in which they are installed?” he wrote.

“Or are they simply a revenue generator that once installed requires no human interaction to issue the citation? As one of the top states in the nation for taxation and cost of living expenses, there is no doubt that this additional revenue is a "no tax" windfall for the municipality. But that doesn’t make it right or add value,” Berthel asserted.

“We do not yet know the value of such cameras because we’ve yet to see long-term studies in efficacy or statewide before/after crash reduction data. Do these cameras reduce fatalities and injuries? We don’t know,” he wrote.

“However, let’s say I loan you my car for the day. You decide to go ripping down CT Route 109, passing one of the first speed camera’s installed in CT at 60 mph, into the quaint village of Washington Depot and get caught speeding by the speed camera. Meanwhile, I’m in Hartford in the Senate Chamber at the State Capitol in session. I get the ticket as the registered owner and will need to go to court to prove that I wasn’t driving my car,” stated Berthel.

“These cameras turn a fundamental principle of our justice system upside down. Instead of the government proving the driver of the vehicle committed the violation, the burden shifts to the registered owner to prove that they didn't. In this scenario, I would have to go to court to prove that I wasn’t driving and didn’t commit the violation. I doubt and question if that is consistent with due process and constitutional protections,” he wrote.

“Speed cameras don’t change the culture of excessive speed on our roadways. Random, in-person enforcement by the police has been very effective for many years. It also identifies people who may be driving under the influence, or with an expired drivers’ license (or no license at all) or an outstanding warrant, among a multitude of other things. The camera doesn't do any of that. But it sure does generate revenue” Berthel stated.

“And then there's the issue of the school bus that recently got caught by the Washington Depot camera exceeding the speed limit. The bus had a GPS tracking system installed that uses the most accurate measure of speed, satellites, that verified the driver was not only not speeding, but was actually moving a bit below the posted speed limit. Only after a day in court and a presentation of the GPS data were the charges against the driver dismissed. This raises serious concerns about the accuracy of these cameras in determining speed and how often, if ever, they are re-calibrated. By contrast, the devices used by law enforcement are checked and re-calibrated on a frequent schedule, and that information is always provided to the court in defense of the issuance of a speeding violation by law enforcement” he continued.

“I opposed the underlying 2023 Vision Zero bill (HB 5917) for a reason. My constituents do not want “speed cameras” because it presumes they are guilty unless proven innocent. The fact of the matter, though, is that these cameras are here for good or bad. If anything, we should be looking at ways to change the culture of speeding in Connecticut so that this is one day a non-issue,” stated Berthel.

What did Knickerbocker learn in graduate school that has helped him in the government career?

Knickerbocker said the Public Administration program at Post was “very practical.”

When he wrote his thesis, he was told, “Go find a problem to solve. It cannot be theoretical.”

Knickerbocker said he spent two years writing about how to improve Bethel’s utility department “which was millions of dollars in the red” and had “a decree” against it from the state Department of Public Health.

“I think I drove my staff crazy, because he had a meeting each week and I used the material from my research for the paper,” Knickerbocker commented.

If being a mayor is challenging and being a first selectman is even more difficult, is the town, city manager form of government a better option?

According to the Connecticut General Assembly, just 33 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities have that system.

“It is the wave of the future,” said Knickerbocker. “But it will not be prominent in Connecticut in the near term. You have 300 years of New England town meeting government.

“It is a more effective form of government,” he said., “Nationally, there are 60 percent professional government managers at the local and county government levels.”

Which elected officials does Knickerbocker most admire?

He credits Democratic former President Franklin Roosevelt with “having the courage to tackle some enormous econ9omic problems in this country.”

He said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Hartford) deserves a blue-ribbon, since he encouraged Knickerbocker in 2008 to make a bid the next year for first selectman.

Knickerbocker said he agrees with Murphy that if you don’t canvass neighborhoods, you are going to get a “skewed” perception of what voters are concerned about.

He said Lt Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D-Middletown) also belongs on the podium.

“She has almost been like a coach,” Knickerbocker relates. “She calls and asks, ‘Matt, how many doors did you knock on today.’ “