Brookfield First Selectman Candidate Tara Carr Says Current Administration is ‘Working In a Vacuum’

Tara Carr is a Republican candidate for First Selectman in Brookfield, CT.

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She's running against the current first Selectman Steve Dunn, and an unaffiliated candidate, Austin Monteiro. During election season, the Ethan and Lou Show likes to give listeners in the Greater-Danbury area, a deeper look at their candidates. Each year before November 2, we try and get as many of them on as possible.

We had Austin Monteiro on the Ethan and Lou Show on 9/3/21, then Steve Dunn joined us on 9/10/21, and now it was Tara Carr's turn. Carr joined us on the show live on 9/17/21 to share her vision for Brookfield. First we asked her to share her background, Carr replied:

"I was born in Danbury, my great grandparents came over from Europe and they were original hatters in the factory in Danbury so I'm very proud of that. I was brought up in Brookfield, I went to St. Joseph School, and then I went to Brookfield my freshman year, I went to Brazil as an exchange student through the Rotary International and then I ended up graduating from New Milford High School. Then, straight out of New Milford High School, I enlisted in the Army in 1995 and I've been serving ever since. I retired last year after 25 years, I'm very proud of my military service, if I could do it all over again I definitely would. It was an honor and a privilege to serve, and I miss being in uniform."

We went on to ask Carr what she believed the issues were facing Brookfield, how she might tackle them, Carr said:

"In talking to the townspeople since I've decided to run, a lot of things have come to light, as you well know the town center district or the four corners area obviously with the over development is one of the biggest issues. I think you guys brought the blight to light when you posted the photos of all the dilapidated buildings on Federal Road, on your website. So, the blight is another issue, we've got issues with upgrades that are needed across town as far as a new police station, the walls at Whisconier are dilapidated, we've got a high school boys locker room that is atrocious and needs immediate attention, the library has been an issue, there is other issues with the environment, and wetlands and Lake Candlewood, I mean the list goes on and on, how much time do we have?"

We didn't have much time, so we wanted to focus on the 4 corners "Streetscape" concerns, we asked Carr to expand on that, she responded:

"I really firmly believe in talking to the townspeople, there are many, many, many of them that are in complete agreement that it's been a missed opportunity. The downtown has not gone in a direction that the townspeople have wanted, this administration has been disorganized, and there has been deals, that have been incentivized that weren't part of the original agreement. Like that tax abatement for example, we really have to ask ourselves, what is our return on investment here? You know, I plan on being smarter, more proactive on how we are developing it, instead of being like this administration who has been very complacent and working in a vacuum. Every decision that has been made by this administration has been done in secret, in secrecy so we need more transparency on how we are resolving problems and problem solving has been what I've done for the past 25 years in my career in the Army so I plan to be very forthcoming with our townspeople and give them a say again in our local government."

We asked Carr if she would get more specific on her transparency statement and she replied:

"It seems, as I do my research and dig deeper into the way that decisions are being made in town, that the current administration isn't necessarily abiding by the town charter and our charter rules are laws in this town. It's a two third vote, there's been times where Steve Dunn has not used his Board of Selectman and he leaves them in the dark. You know, it seems he's ruling a little fiefdom but that's not the way our town is supposed to be run."

You can listen to our entire interview with Tara Carr in the video player at the top of the page.