The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Bransfield reflects on tenure as CCM head
Lobbying group’s goal: Sustainable, livable state for next generation
PORTLAND — First Selectman Susan S. Bransfield is closing out her term as president of the Connecticut Council of Municipalities , the organization that lobbies on behalf the state’s cities and towns.
It has been a challenging year, with the prolonged impasse over adopting a state budget and a series of reductions in state aid that has cost Portland $800,000 in anticipated funding. And yet, for all that, Bransfield said, “I loved the year.”
“It was a rare opportunity to get to know many people from different parts of the state and to work with the employees of CCM,” Bransfield said as she sat in her corner office in Town Hall Tuesday afternoon. “I’m proud of some of our accomplishments over the year.”
She pointed in particular to “This Report is Different,” a CCM publication that Bransfield said “serves as a template for Connecticut’s future.” The report focuses on three areas of concern to municipal officials, Bransfield said.
There are ways of dealing with diminishing revenues, sharing services with adjoining communities and suggested ways to curtail costs.
In some cases, addressing that last issue will require having to change some laws, such as a proposal for the state to share a portion of the state’s sales tax revenues with the cities and towns, Bransfield said.
Another proposal contained in the report “is allowing towns to control noneducational expenditures by boards of education (such as bulk purchasing (and) building and grounds maintenance),” according to a summary of the report.
If those changes are made, the effort can serve to make Connecticut more economically viable.
Even with a state budget finally in place, “We still are facing some stiff problems with regards to spending,” Bransfield said.
In cooperation with CCM’s Executive Director Joe DeLong, Bransfield “sent a letter to the state leaders asking that a task force be established to look at how (state) pensions are funded so they can be sustainable and last,” Bransfield said.
In the meantime, switching effortlessly back to her role as chief executive of Portland, Bransfield proposed having the town join Sustainable CT.
Earlier this month, the newly elected Board of Selectmen agreed to join the program, sponsored by CCM in cooperation with the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Eastern Connecticut State University.
In a statement welcoming Portland’s participation in the program, Lynn Stoddard, director of the institute, said “The Sustainable CT program supports a broad range of actions such as improving watershed management, supporting arts and creative culture, reducing energy use and increasing renewable energy, implementing ‘complete streets’ (streets that meet the needs of walkers and bicyclists as well as cars), improving recycling programs, assessing climate vulnerability, supporting local businesses and providing efficient and diverse housing options.”
One program Bransfield said she would like to see the town embark on would create a farm-to-table effort that would rely upon local farmers supplying fresh food in the school cafeterias.
Bransfield had served on CCM’s board of directors before stepping up to the president’s role this year.
“That’s one thing that CCM has: a nice policy of continuity. I was first vice president under (last year’s president) Mark Boughton,” the mayor of Danbury, Bransfield said.
Now she is being succeeded by Neil O’Leary, the mayor of Waterbury.
“I’m looking forward to working with Mayor O’Leary as the immediate past president,” Bransfield said. “He’s very concerned about the health and vitality of Connecticut.”
O’Leary is particularly concerned about the opioid crisis that continues to claim too many lives across the state, Bransfield said.
Bransfield said 166 of the state’s 169 cities and towns are CCM members. And she hopes in short order all the state’s cities and town will become members of the association. CCM is poised to move from its current offices on Chapel Street in New Haven to a new location on Long Wharf, Bransfield said.
Perhaps the most important lesson she is taking away from her presidency could and should be the goal of state legislators, Bransfield said.
“If you work together on a common goal, you can achieve great results,” Bransfield said.
When it meets, CCM’s board of directors “don’t care about which party you are or the size of your community. We’re just united to trying to achieve the same goals and interests,” she said. “We all have the same goal: to make Connecticut a more sustainable and livable state and to pass that on to the next generation.”