Rankings rankle
Antispending activists say scoring individual RTM reps informs voters; some members say they’re playing politics
GREENWICH — An antispending activist group says its rankings of Representative Town Meeting members holds them accountable for their votes. But some members called the online rankings an attempt to politicize the nonpartisan RTM in Greenwich.
The Greenwichbased Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut posted its own selfdetermined rankings in a photo gallery online of all 230 members of the town legislative body.
The rankings are based on a single question, “How consistently does your RTM member oppose wasteful spending, higher taxes and needless regulation?” And the
scores, based on that selfcreated criteria, come just weeks before residents cast ballots in the Nov. 5 municipal elections.
Laura Gladstone, a founding member of Fiscal Freedom, said the rankings are a way to show how RTM members voted.
“Some people of both parties running for office like to say, ‘I am fiscally conservative, but socially liberal,’ which sounds nice and warm and fuzzy. But when you see their voting record you can see that some of them are actually not fiscally conservative at all,” Gladstone said.
The group created the rankings because it’s difficult to find on the town website how RTM members voted on issues, Gladstone said. And many residents don’t have the time to search for the information, she said.
The scores posted on the website used the group’s own methodology to evaluate the RTM members. It looked at their votes on issues that included lowering the town’s mill rate, putting a sunset clause on the town’s plastic bag ban and eliminating the paper bag fee, opposing a new Northwest Fire Station, banning fracking waste in town, which the group opposed, and voting on a sense of the meeting resolution against highway tolls. The methodology also looked at how RTM members voted on nominations of specific residents to town and RTM committees, some which the group supported and another they opposed.
The scores are based on votes over the last two years. Of the 230 members, 17 received a score of 100 percent under the group’s criteria.
One of those perfect scores went to District 7 member Hilary Gunn, an outspoken opponent of tolls.
“My votes have always been thoughtful and not in favor of every proposed cut along the way,” said Gunn, who is proud of her score. “Rather, I view my score as a holistic reflection of how I serve generally on the RTM, keeping a watchful eye on fiscal policy and spending, but never losing sight of what makes Greenwich so spectacular, and what is required to keep it that way.”
RTM District 11 member Kimberly Salib was also highly ranked, earning a score of 91 percent.
“I like statistics,” Salib said. “I think the voters should really consider how the RTM members they elect have voted. The voters are lucky to have this public information compiled for them on a single website. I will continue to vote and fight for fiscal freedom in Greenwich.”
The upcoming election is a clear focus of Fiscal Freedom, which includes its endorsement of Republican Board of Selectmen candidates Fred Camillo and Lauren Rabin.
“Obviously, we are proponents of fiscally responsible candidates that do not believe in longterm borrowing and increasing taxes,” said Gladstone, who is not currently on the RTM but is running for a seat in District 2. “That is why we are behind Fred and Lauren and think they will make a great team.”
Partisan politics or the issues?
But there has been criticism, particularly because the group posted every RTM member’s political party affiliation as part of the rankings. District 4 member Lucy Von Brachel was one of 15 members who received a zero rating, and she accused the group of “blatant partisanship” on the nonpartisan body.
“I take my participation in the RTM very seriously,” Von Brachel said. “I take the nonpartisan nature of the RTM very seriously. I’m disappointed that the group behind this scorecard, some of who are current RTM members or are running for the first time this year, have decided to publish something so antithetical to the purpose of the RTM.”
Another member with a ranking of zero is District 5’s Jennie Baird, who was one of the March On Greenwich members elected in 2017. Many from March On and Indivisible Greenwich ran for office two years ago.
Baird said there is a mistaken belief that March On is “some kind of radical leftwing group, which it most certainly is not.” She called it “a grassroots movement dedicated to promoting civic engagement in town.”
“The ratings are a bald effort to inappropriately politicize the RTM,” Baird said. “They also reflect a convoluted idea of what it means to be fiscally responsible, with many of the issues they rate on having nothing to do with fiscal responsibility at all, but rather with pushing a narrow agenda.”
She said that “responsible leaders” protect the town’s resources, “take a longterm view on financial planning and decisionmaking” and make decisions based on the collective interest. “If that means I’m a zero, then I guess I wear it as a badge of honor,” Baird said.
Gladstone said party affiliation is public information and blamed any increased partisanship on other groups.
“Unfortunately, Indivisible and March On have completely changed the RTM so that it is not nonpartisan anymore,” Gladstone said. “It is not the congenial, friendly representative body it once was. And that saddens most people in our town.”
While party affiliation is public record, “given the unmethodical methodology they use for scoring and the blatant partisanship behind it, I believe it does more harm than good to broadcast it,” Von Brachel said.
Low rankings to go around
District 8 member Laura Kostin, a past Democratic candidate for the state legislature’s 151st District, doubted the motivations of Fiscal Freedom.
“It’s clear from the criteria used by this group that this is not a ‘fiscal’ scorecard but rather a partisan/political one and an odd one at that,” said Kostin, who scored 5 percent. “I don’t understand how votes on certain appointments are supposed to be ‘fiscal’ in nature. It’s just all very strange.”
It’s not just Democrats who earned low ratings. Some highprofile Republicans also got low marks. And some Democrats got high scores: Wilma Nacinovich, chair of District 2 and a registered Democrat, earned a perfect 100 percent score. District 1’s Elizabeth Sanders, a member of the Democratic Town Committee, got a 73 percent, ahead of Ed Dadakis, a former Republican Town Committee chair, at 57 percent.
“I always vote my conscience,” Sanders said. “I view my responsibility as allocating the appropriate expenditures for the community at large. I take this responsibility very seriously, and as a result, I plan to continue to vote in what I feel, is the best interest of all the citizens of Greenwich.”
Dadakis, who hadn’t seen the rankings, said Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut was not really an organization, it is just Gladstone.
“I’m comfortable with who I am, always for Greenwich first,” he said.
Of the rankings, the most 100 percent scores were the six awarded in District 7. District 10, which covers Northwest Greenwich and has pushed for a new fire station, got the most zeros — five — and an additional 11 of the 20 members scoring under 50 percent.
Labels from special interest groups
RTM Moderator Tom Byrne said he was aware of the rankings and said it is a “common strategy of special interest groups is to label individuals as being friendly to a specific cause or hostile to it.”
“It is a legislator’s lot to be subjected to what can be a very partisan interpretation of the meaning of any particular vote,” Byrne said, “This approach has been around on the state and national level for a long time. We are now seeing this strategy applied on the local level.
“I can understand why a political advocacy group wants to present a simplified analysis of what can be a complicated picture,” he said. “My hope is that individual voters understand that any ranking is only as good as the methodology behind it. Voters should make an effort to evaluate the underlying criteria used in generating any such ‘scorecard.’”
Gunn, the District 7 member who earned a perfect score, urged voters to do their own research.
“I do fear a bit of nuance can be lost with a percentage score, particularly as not everyone will follow up on the methodology used,” she said. “I encourage concerned citizens to not only review fiscal scores, but to reach out to their representatives, learn more about how our municipal government functions, and even attend a district meeting to truly get a feel for whom they will select at the polls.
“Prudent spending and stewardship of our town’s financial future are more important now than ever, particularly against a backdrop of Hartford’s taxandspend haunted house,” she said.
The Fiscal Freedom group was originally called the Femmes for Fiscal Freedom when it was created last year. The name was changed in April 2018 to reflect that men were members, too, Gladstone said.
She did not disclose the number of members there are now, however, because “there has been so much backlash by the radical organizations on the left suppressing free speech and threatening people, so that people are more cautious now.”
Gladstone stood behind the rankings, saying they should not be divisive because they are based on votes.
“I don’t know why listing public information on ones’ voting record would be considered divisive,” she said. “If they are proud of the way they vote, then they should take ownership for it. Many people are proud of their 100 percent score. Some people may be upset with their low score, but that is easily fixable by voting in a fiscally responsible way.”
To view the rankings from the Fiscal Freedom group, visit www.fiscalfreedom.ct.