New face for Granby Select Board; underride vote for Annual Election

By EMILY CUTTS

@ecutts_HG

Published: 05-12-2017 11:39 PM

GRANBY — While the incumbent is not seeking re-election, the race for Select Board will see familiar faces in those running for the vacant seat in Monday’s annual town election.

Glen Sexton and Jennifer Silva will compete for the single three-year seat. No other race in the election is contested.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Granby Junior Senior High School.

In the 2016 annual election, Sexton narrowly lost a spot on the board when Selectman Anthony Chojnacki edged out Sexton by six votes in what turned out to be a four-way race for Select Board.

In that same race, Silva ran a write-in campaign and received 43 votes.

Finishing up his second three-year term, Selectman Louis Barry decided not to run for a third term.

“I think it’s time to get some fresh blood in there. I’ve enjoyed my terms but it’s time to move on,” Barry said last week. “I got a lot of other things keeping me busy. I think it’s time for somebody else to take the reigns.”

In his time on the board, Barry said he has appreciated the support he has received from the people in town. He added that he also had the “luxury of working with some very good people.”

Glen Sexton

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The current Planning Board chairman, Sexton, 48, said he was running for Select Board to make a difference in the community.

He added that he cares about the town and wants to be more involved as well as give a voice for the people. Sexton said he wants to make changes to improve the town and preserve those things that drew him and his family to Granby more than 20 years ago.

Now in his second year on the Planning Board, Sexton also works for the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department as director of inmate restitution. He also served on the West Street School Council and holds a seat on the marijuana bylaw committee.

“I know what it takes to sit on a town board,” he said.

The budget, Sexton said, is one of the biggest issues facing the town.

“What are we going to do to keep our town desirable for people to move into Granby? Working on the budget is one thing,” Sexton said.

Keeping the tax base at a level so it is does not burden homeowners was important, Sexton said, noting that 90 percent of taxes collected are residential.

Sexton said the town also needs to look at working on infrastructure in order to make it more desirable for certain types of businesses.

He said as selectman he want to represent the veterans and senior citizens of Granby.

“I’m a proven leader. I’m a professional,” he said. “I’m someone that can get in there day one and hit the ground running because I have that experience and knowledge to do that.”

Jennifer Silva

A Granby native and small business owner, Silva, 39, said up until fairly recently, the town has been run “fairly poorly.”

“I want my kids to grow up in this town and if it keeps going, we’re not going to have a town,” she said.

Silva said the town has no steady, reliable, income and its business zoning laws create too many hoops to jump through. The town also has inadequate infrastructure, she said.

“That has to change,” she said. “We have to create some sort of self sufficiency.”

In addition to the budget, Silva said transparency has been an issue and only recently has the Select Board been good at educating the town.

“If we can have more of our town residents get involved, we can come up with so many solutions to fix our town,” she said.

Having worked in the banking industry in both consumer and business banking, Silva said she is familiar with how a town runs and its capital needs.

Silva said she is fearless, innovative and enjoys looking at problems in a different way. With her candidacy as a woman and a younger member of town, she said she is hoping to lead by example.

“What we have been doing isn’t working so it is time to shake it up. We’ve never had a woman in her 40s that has purple hair on the Select Board,” she said. “I’m not traditional. I’m not going to do things the traditional way. Tradition hasn’t worked for us — it’s time to think outside the box.”

Underride

As part of Monday’s election, residents will vote on a $30,000 underride question. The money comes as a result of the town’s switch to curbside collection of municipal solid waste three years ago.

At that time, the Select Board asked taxpayers to approve a tax override vote to fund the program, Town Administrator Christopher Martin said. The board told residents that when the contract expired and went to renew, if it came back lower they would ask for underride vote and reduce amount they would charge.

The board determined they don’t need $30,000 in taxation to fund the program, Martin explained. The question essentially asks the voters if they want to reduce the amount of taxes being charged against them next fiscal year, by about 5 cents per $1,000.

“There would be $10 less raised on tax bills,” Martin said.

If it doesn’t pass, Martin said, the money would become available funding for something else.

Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.

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