GOOD Morning Wilton‘s Heather Borden Herve and Kathy Bonnist spoke with First Selectman Toni Boucher for her first interview since taking office, on Monday, Dec. 11. This Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.
It wasn’t just a line delivered on the campaign trail. When Toni Boucher said she’d always have a cup of coffee ready for anyone who stopped in to see her at Wilton Town Hall, she was telling the truth. Walking into the first selectman’s suite, Boucher first ushers a guest into the conference room space between Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker‘s office and her own. The conference table is now covered with a selection of coffees, teas, hot chocolate, cider and a Keurig machine, plus a big assortment of baked goods — fresh blueberry cake, cookies and more, most of them homemade. She brews a hot beverage to order and wants no one to leave hungry.
A dedicated family cook and chef (she’s currently writing multiple cookbooks in addition to serving as Wilton’s chief executive), Boucher says making sure her guests are well cared for is part of the tone she is purposefully setting as first selectman, putting her own stamp on the job.
First Selectman Toni Boucher: I really want to work hard at making Town Hall and our town government as open and accessable as we possibly can. It’s really important to me. I always felt that way in other positions I had, working in the investment company here in Wilton [Commonfund] as well as our private family business, I was doing both for 22 years. And in the senate.
Coming from an Italian family, my father was that way, he would literally pull people off the sidewalk, make them come in and eat and drink, and then chat. He was a custodian at a chemical plant, there were PhDs in chemical engineering. Many days, I’d come home from school, and around the kitchen table was my dad and all of these PhDs. Of course, the attraction was the fabulous homemade Italian food that my mother was constantly preparing.
He was my role model for all of this, he loved to convene, and to entertain, and you hear from them and learn from them. That’s something I just grew up with. I always warn everybody, there will be food. In Hartford, and here, I would find a delicious donut shop and grab a dozen donuts, sometimes I’d make meatballs and sauce, and when we’d have a meeting with the staff, or other colleagues, it would all be on the table.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t be firm. There’s two sides to my personality. When I assumed this position, it took me [back] into the mold of when I was a big-time corporate person that managed up to 500 people at any given time. We built 1,000 hotels, and then I worked for GE and traveled all over the country. So it’s both sides — you’ve got to get things done, you want to move things forward, and if there are hard decisions to be made, whether it’s personnel or infrastructure or projects to get completed, then you need to move it along.
GOOD Morning Wilton: I’m glad you brought it up. My feeling was, it’s disarming in a way, you bring people in with the warmth and you feed them — but people shouldn’t underestimate you at all.
Boucher: If there’s problems to be had — and there will be, there are things, it seems, in a lot of the positions a lot of things were left undone, that were left for me to clean up after. And I have had to do that because I don’t want to leave things undone. We’ve got a lot of important things to move forward.
The police station has to be overseen. Then we have that massive [school] maintenance report that we have. And there is a ‘twin’ report coming shortly on the Town Hall infrastructure [needs]. If I took you on a tour — which I would love to, because people have not seen it and they need to see it.
People don’t often, unless they go to the town clerk or the planning office, or pay taxes, see the inside of the Town Hall and the Annex. Many of these buildings are way past their useful life. Here in my office, there is plastic wrap around the windows and a space heater because it’s cold and the wind comes through.
It’s an old building, but beautiful. I love the idea of maintaining the outward historical appearance, but the inside has to have offices that function. We have to have a work environment that people are attracted to, otherwise we lose people just because the infrastructure is so terrible, that it’s not a pleasant work environment to be in.
Something that jarred me when I went to the Planning Department in the Annex, which used to have a nice, large community meeting room, which is no longer there. It’s cut up into little box offices. It looks like an interrogation room where you’ve arrested somebody and it’s a small little cellular room with no windows. I’ve been here a week and a half and I already received two calls [about it] — two complaints [from residents who said,] “I went to the Planning Office and I was greeted by a wall and a desk with no one in it and three phone numbers to call.”
No coffee/tea bar there. No nothing. It’s not like we bring in Starbucks [here]. This is stuff that I bought myself from home and my old Keurig [coffemaker] so that we can have a welcoming place for internal stuff. People [do] walk in — a couple of people just drove last week, they said, “We got your note that we could just stop by,” and I said, “Absolutely! Let’s chat. Have a cup of coffee!” But you learn a lot. And it makes your day more pleasant.
GMW: You hit on a bunch of points we’ll definitely get to. Let’s talk about the school needs assessment and next steps. Lynne Vanderslice, in her last meeting as first selectwoman, outlined what she thought needed to be done and steps you should take. In your first meeting, it was a definitive deliniation, [holds up a hand to say ‘stop’], as if to say, “Hang on a second.”
Boucher: Right. And you reported on that, by the way, very well, and I appreciate that. We can’t jump right into creating committees until we know what the charge of the committee is, that we’re all on the same page.
Just last week, we arrived at a time when we could meet with the [school] superintendent [Kevin Smith], we’ll meet with Matt [Knickerbocker], we’ll put our heads together and say, “Okay, what’s our process going to be like? Where are the responsibilities going to be? Who takes ownership of the financial?
The ultimate decision making has to be with the Town, but the Town is responsible for the buildings, both for the schools and for the town. The operational aspects, and the normal daily maintenance is definitely on the Board of Education‘s part. So there will be a little bit of negotiation, I believe, when it comes to where do the finances finally lie?
Then beyond, first of all, what are the committees? Small committees? What’s the makeup of the committee? What’s the representation going to look like? And then what’s the charge? How are the financial questions going to be answered? What’s the right format?
And, by the way, it’s not just the Board of Education, the Board of Finance is front and center. It has to be tri-board. And certainly, we are going to include the building and the planning office, because there’s certainly decisions there.
I’m glad to see that they have three levels of priority. That’s where the big decisions will be. Even though we have this report, that doesn’t mean 100% of the report may or may not get done.
Then we have to see what the impending municipal side is going to look like. And that’s up and coming. I would have probably done the two reports together, so that they would arrive together. But I think Lynne’s thinking was, ‘Well, that’s a lot for them to do.’
I think that [we’ll have that municipal report] in January, fingers crossed. I’m trying to encourage that time frame, because I’d really like to go to the town [residents] with both [needs assessment reports] together. We’ve done too much separating and we can’t leave one out. And it’s easy to do, because the schools have a natural constituency, to advocate for them. The town also needs that.
Look at the Police Station — I was there for 20 years when this was being discussed; think about how long it took to have [that] critical need being addressed. So in the same vein, I think we need to put them together, see what numbers come out, then have the level of priority one, two, and three. And then there’s also the future of what your dream solution might be from an infrastructure standpoint.
The town facilities also need that kind of look. The Annex may have reached its useful life. Can this [Town Hall] building contain more? Could we put another level on this building and make it new offices by keeping the historical appearance on the outside with the columns and the brick but the insides meet today’s needs? This building is 50 or 60 years old.
GMW: Is the municipal buildings assessments report still on track for February?
Boucher: I’m hoping to make it sooner if we can. I would not like to see it in February, I would really like us to have it in January, it would be much better for us. Because the have-to-do right now, the critical, life and safety needs need to be addressed in the next couple of years. So we need to put that front and center for both the town side and the school.
There’s no question — the schools are our number one business, by the way. Some people think it’s ASML. But ASML may be our number two business. Our number one business in Wilton is our school system. It is its heart, it is the attraction, why people come here and what keeps our home values high. It’s the heart of our community.
GMW: Do you really think a 10-year plan for school maintenance and upgrades is feasible? Will we need longer than that to accomplish what needs to be done?
Boucher: It will have to be longer. Lynne actually put that out there for everyone, and she is a really good numbers person. I trust her analysis on that. And we have a very talented Board of Finance now, we really do have lots of good expertise. So they’re going to take another look at that as well. And then we’ll depend on some of our engineers internally.
GMW: How soon can the town expect to see at least the very first beginnings of nessecary maintenance work begin? Will we vote on any of it in May at the Annual Town Meeting?
Boucher: It’s good timing, because it’s budget season. We’re starting to really get involved with that, our initial meeting is this week already with the leaders of all of the constituent groups to talk about process and how we formulate the committees and what the committee should be, and how do we deal with the financial piece of this at different levels?
GMW: Now that you can really see the financials from the inside, how realistic is it that you’ll be able to meet that 4% [mill rate increase] guidance that the Board of Finance has been discussing?
Boucher: It’s on everyone’s mind, including the Board of Finance. They feel comfortable with the 4%, with the exception — and they repeat this regularly — what is the revaluation going to tell us? Will it really be that dramatic shift from commercial to residential? Or will some commercial actually be doing better than we thought? We’re hoping that’s true.
Will the higher values of homes, which has really been dramatic — I know, I’ve lived through the up and down side with my own having been here 40 years, I’ve seen a couple of the cycles. Some people literally walked away from their homes and gave the bank’s the keys because they were so underwater in value. Now, it’s the total opposite. It’s such a swing. So we’ll see where those come out.
We’ll know next week, the 15th [of December] is when people will be getting their new valuation. Now the commercial side is done differently. And that’s where, fingers crossed, maybe we’ll see some improvement, that it’s not as bad as maybe we thought, but we’re not sure quite yet. So we can’t make that assumption. Because if it’s not as dramatic as we might have feared, then we can hold to that 4%.
If it’s really bad — it could be 7%-8%, which the town has not seen those since the 1980s and 90s that we had those kinds of increases in our town budget
Then we have another whole dramatic change in Moody’s requirement for reserves, which the benchmark has been 10%. Now their guidance to all of the towns is 25- to 35%. But Wilton has been healthy in that regard, with the exception of they’ve been using some of those excess funds and reserves to downplay any tax increases, they’ve been able to mitigate, even when there’s a 3- or 4% union contract [salary increase], they’ve been using that to mitigate those tax increases. Now, they can’t do that anymore. They’ve got to hold it back so that’s not going to be able to mute some of the increases.
All of this is ongoing. We’re going to see how that plays out. It is an interesting time to assume office here.
You know, I’m very happy to stand up on behalf of all of us, because I live here too, and my kids live here. We all are facing those struggles. It’s going to be our challenge to preserve what we love and enhance it along with trying to stay very reasonable for the people that do really feel a tax increase on their property because it is high. It is high in Connecticut. It’s high in Wilton but it’s high in the Northeast in general.
GMW: Just to be specific for readers, should they expect to get their property revaluation in the mail on Dec. 15? Or they’ll be mailed out on Dec. 15?
Boucher: It’s been completed. They should expect to see them around Dec. 15.
GMW: And the commercial property revaluations?
Boucher: That’s ongoing now but not on the same track. It’s a whole different calculation with different people involved in doing that. It will be in time for us, of course, to go into the budget season. The Board of Finance desperately needs this information so that they can move forward.
GMW: Speaking about commercial properties, let’s talk blight. The blight ordinance now allows the town to pursue blighted commercial properties, and there are some very visible properties around town I’m sure the Town is concerned about. What is happening with that? How quickly will residents start to see or hear about any kinds of commercial landowners being told it’s time to clean up their properties?
Boucher: That is an excellent question. They’re going to have some time, from the time that they’re notified to the time that they can get it done. I don’t know if there’s opportunities to appeal it. I think they answer the letter. I wouldn’t be surprised if letters have already gone out. And they have that opportunity to respond. Then there’s ways for the town to put pressure on them to move it forward.
But you’re right. There are a couple of very big eyesores that need to be addressed, in the southern part of our town close to the Norwalk border, but here right in the heart of Wilton.
GMW: A bit of a different subject — the Wilton Menorahs effort, for the community to display menorahs to show support for Jewish residents in the face of rising antisemitism. Speaking both personally and also for the Jewish community in Wilton, you displaying one on your desk has made a very important statement, something very heartfelt for people. When you heard about this effort in Wilton, what was your feeling about it?
Boucher: My brother was a voracious reader, very intelligent, and he had books upon books. When I was 12, I found a book called Auschwitz written by a doctor inside the camps, in such detail that it was so horrendous. It’s not a book for anyone of the age of 12 to read, and I remember reading it and then getting almost sick over it and then I couldn’t leave it. I kept going back until I read the whole thing. That always stuck with me.
During the Second World War, two of my uncles were able to escape Mussolini’s army, my grandfather smuggled them to the United States, but my father was left behind. He had to go to the front lines and had a terrible situation. My aunt whose husband had come to America, she was left behind on the farm. And our farm was right in the path of the Nazis. They laid waste to all the farms they came through. And something really horrible happened to my aunt, and maybe my mother as well. They wouldn’t talk about that, but I finally found out that it was true, and it was a devastating situation.
The American soldiers came in afterwards and cleaned it all up, set up field hospitals repaired a terrible wound for my younger cousin, where she almost died. They saved them essentially, from all that destruction. So I always had this sensitivity to this.
When I went off to college and had roommates that were Jewish, and then my best friend was Jewish. She and I exchanged holidays together, she would come for Christmas, I would go there for their Jewish holidays, we became very close.
In college I was asked to be a member of a very, very prestigious sorority on campus. Coming from where I came from, this was a big deal, because I was always from the other side of the tracks, and for these very wealthy, young ladies coming from these very prestigious families to want me to be a member of their sorority, it was a big deal. And one day one of them took me aside and said, “You know, Karen, your friend, well, you know, she’s Jewish.” I said, “Yes, she is.” She said, “Well, you really shouldn’t be hanging out with her.” And I was stunned. And I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, you know…” And I said, “No, I don’t know. And by the way, I think I’m not an appropriate member for your sorority.” So I had to formally de-pledge the sorority, and I didn’t Karen for decades later that that ever happened. But it just so incensed me.
My youngest son became friends with a Jewish family in Wilton when there were very, very few. And the family’s grandparents were there all the time. And they had tattoos on their arms. So they got a chance to learn about it. And we would go to Temple with them for the times when there were special occasions, Bar Mitzvahs, and so on.
I started in the legislature in 1997, and in Wilton back in the early 2000s, we had some antisemitic instances. Because of that, a group approached me, they wanted to have a 60th birthday party for the country of Israel, and would we have it here? I said, “I will help you, we’ll have it here.” We had it in the field where we have the Fourth of July — there were thousands of people that came, it was a big deal, and it was it made me feel really good.
I found out that because these incidents are happening, and [students] weren’t being taught about the Holocaust in our schools, I decided, it’s important, and so I started this crusade for like, over a decade. A Democratic staffer would watch me do this year after year, being out there alone on it, because it was “too controversial” or “not the right time.” I kept at it and in my very last term, my very last year, I put it in one more time. And that young man became the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Connecticut. Then I found out about Voices of Hope, and they were an advocate. So they all came forward and said they would help. It was so amazing, once I got traction, once it started to go, everybody wanted to come on board.
Later was asked to join the board of Voices of Hope to be involved, because they were then charged with the educational component of going into schools, telling the story. And it’s probably the proudest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done quite a few things, in the legislature and for Wilton, but that for me emotionally, was a campaign of passion and it just meant so much to me, and it still does. Because I had a family experience that was minuscule compared to what happened to millions of people and children. It’s just so inconceivable that anyone could systematically do this to any other human, never mind an entire population.
And it saddens me, what has happened recently, that just brought it all back home. If not now, if we don’t stand up now, we can never allow it — we say, ‘Never again.’ But, you know, the fear is that, yes, it could happen again. It’s possible, how could we stand back?
GMW: Something less emotional, but something that people are very eager about is the cell tower. When is that going to be installed?
Boucher: Well, I’ve found that things like the Schenck’s Island parking lot, that someone needs some part or something that’s still on order and hasn’t been found. This part for the tower, the town does that have any delay. It is part of the companies that are putting that [project] together. They’re waiting on something that the company didn’t get.
We’re all anxious for that [tower]. There is no question, how frustrating it is to be downtown in Wilton Center and you can’t get service until you drive away from the center. And I mean, this is our businesses and our commerce. So it really does need to happen.
GMW: Along those lines, what about construction on the new Police Station? There was a groundbreaking ceremony last month but since then, nothing. When is that really starting?
Boucher: That is absolutely top of mind. As I said, there were some things left undone prior to my getting here, and that is probably the number one thing, my wish to help move forward.
There are a lot of people at the Police Department that are anxious for that too. It’s not something I can discuss at the moment. There are certain things and responsible parties that we need to, you know… That is absolutely top of mind.
GMW: Can you talk about your communication strategy? Will you use social media? Will you do newsletters?
Boucher: Yes, definitely. My first newsletter is going to be out today sometime. [Editor’s note: Boucher sent her newsletter via the town email system on Monday afternoon.] I believe in frequent and timely newsletters and or press releases when we have to do something that’s urgent.
I’d like for us to also develop a way in which people can submit testimony like they do with the state. But we haven’t gotten there yet. But that’s one of my ideas. At the state, [the testimony] is a general email that goes to the whole committee, and it’s automatically then also posted online. So when you go to that you’ll see everybody’s written testimony, see who they are, what they think. And it’s also good for the other board members and the public at large.
GMW: What about Facebook? Are you going to stay on Facebook?
Boucher: Well, I have my personal Facebook. And, that’s a good question of whether there’s a formal first selectman’s Facebook page. I don’t know that there is one. I’ve got already gotten questions. And I sent them my email so they can email it here. Because you want it be FOIA searchable and you can see the paper trail. And that, I think, is the best, most transparent way to conduct business.
I’ve been so used to having my personal Facebook page, I’ve also been trying to post things on [Wilton CT] 411 and 412 [on Facebook]. But it’s mostly putting information out rather than receiving information back.
GMW: What is your holiday, end-of-year message to residents and what do you want people to know as the year wraps up? What can people expect and what do you want to tell people at the end of the year?
Boucher: Well, I just want them to be prepared for the financial challenges that are looming, but it’s also a great time to see the great opportunities we have to move the town forward. This is going to be the big balance — balancing what attracts people here and it’s beautiful, the character, the colonial character, and small village style, while still moving us forward into the future, and be able to have the vital services with strong amenities and businesses that feel good about being here.
We have so much to look forward to that’s positive. And I want people to feel that we’re here for them. And they can just reach out. And if we don’t know the answer, we’ll get the answer for them. And that they are part and parcel of this community. Our town government and schools are there to serve the very people that live here. That’s our reason for being here. We’re not here for ourselves. We’re here to serve the public and the more we know what the public needs and wants, the better we can serve them. So, we have an open door.
And I’m very hopeful that we’re going to have a really fantastic New Year and I wish the best of health and for families to be safe and to be together and be surrounded by the most love.