Geoff Alswanger
STAMFORD — After seven years on the Board of Education, followed by a twoyear break, Democrat Geoff Alswanger is running for the Board of Finance. A onetime chief financial officer for tech companies — now director of Long Ridge Camp, which his family has owned for 58 years — Alswanger said the impetus to seek a seat came from driving around Stamford.
“I was seeing some of the challenges the city faces and thinking to myself, ‘Someone should fix this,’ ” said Alswanger, 53, a married father of two grown children. “Then I thought, ‘I can’t complain if I’m not doing something to help.’ ”
He chose the powerful Board of Finance, which sets the budget and tax rates, because that’s his background, said Alswanger, who has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
“It’s kind of how my mind thinks,” he said.
The six members of the finance board hold office for four years on a staggered schedule. This year incumbents Mary Lou Rinaldi and David Kooris, both Democrats, are running again. But fellow Democrat Dudley Williams, elected in 2015, is not seeking reelection. Also vying for the three open spots on the finance board are Republicans Chris Woodside, Andrew Krill and Fritz Blau.
Alswanger said it’s a time to look ahead.
“I’d really like the finance board to focus on longterm planning,” he said. “As we’ve become a bigger city, it’s important that we do more than look at one year at a time. I think we especially need to focus on infrastructure — not just schools but all of it.”
The city is in the middle of a multimilliondollar push to fix school roofs and windows and otherwise ensure that buildings are watertight. A mold infestation that started last summer resulted in the closure of an elementary school and a shortage of classroom space district wide while rooms are repaired.
The fire department has similar problems, said Alswanger, who sits on the Fire Commission. Woodside Station No. 5 was evacuated in August because of mold.
The mindset has to change, he said.
“We have a history in this city of addressing needs once they become a crisis,” he said. “Longterm planning is critical.”
It’s particularly true now, he said, when Stamford’s population is 130,000 and growing.
“There is a longheld view that that all the growth represents found money,” said Alswanger, a Stamford native. “But we all know it is putting tremendous strain on the city, and we have to plan for that. It’s affecting schools, roads, the fire department, the police department. Adding residents is not the windfall people claim it might be. We have to look at the cost.”
To do that, he’s willing to rejoin the corps of citizen volunteers who staff the elected boards that operate the city, said Alswanger, who served on the school board during one of its most tumultuous tenures.
The controversy began in 2014, when it was discovered that a Stamford High School English teacher was having a sexual relationship with a student. It ended more than two years later, after the principal and assistant principal were ousted for failing to report the matter, the superintendent retired early, and seven of the nine board members stepped down or didn’t run again.
It’s worth the successes, such as the creation of Strawberry Hill School in less than three years, Alswanger said.
“We went from a point where people said, ‘It’s a nice idea but it will never happen,’ to it happening,” he said. “Even though people think no one can make a difference, you actually can.”