"To my mind, there would be people in this town that would be concerned about Bill Tinsley's plans," Mr. Davidson said in an interview Oct. 6 after he and the Democratic ticket presented its platform in a PowerPoint slide show in the Whisconier Middle School seminar room.
"Because of the way he describes his vision of Federal Road, I'm sort of thinking of Boston Post Road, Central Avenue in Westchester County [New York]," he said, making reference to roads with many commercial outlets and huge volumes of traffic.
Petitioning candidate Ernie Nepomuceno, the chairman of the Board of Finance for the last eight years, has stated on his Web site that he has reservations about the potential of the Village District.
Under the "fiction" portion of his "facts and fiction" section, he stated, "Pouring a sidewalk on Federal Road from Rte. 133 to the New Milford border (an industrial/commercially zone area) is going to cause people to abandon their cars and shop. In fact, most of Federal Road from Rte. 133 to Silvermine Road is zoned industrial."
Mr. Nepomuceno and First Selectman Robert Silvaggi, who has endorsed his campaign, both said in recent interviews that they don't expect much growth in the town's grand list in the immediate future, partly because of the current economic recession.
Mr. Silvaggi announced in July that he wouldn't seek a second term as the town's top elected official.
Mr. Davidson said that land-use enforcement officer Bill Schappert, a former longtime member of the Zoning Commission who has helped write many of the regulations, indicated in a recent opinion piece in the newspaper that Federal Road is not capable of handling the kind of commercial development that Mr. Tinsley has proposed.
The Democratic nominee, a former Republican who served on the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen, has said for a least a year that Brookfield needs to have a dialogue about whether it wants to keep its current tax base and have residential taxpayers continue to finance a large share of the municipal budget or expand the town's commercial base.
Mr. Davidson has said that he is confused by comments regarding maintaining Brookfield as a rural municipality, since he believes it already had become a suburban town when he moved there in 1973.
State Rep. David Scribner (R-Brookfield), who represents the 107th District, has said that, per capita, Brookfield grew more than any of Connecticut's 169 municipalities in the 1960s as the town became accessible to Interstate-84.
Mr. Davidson indicated this week that he supports development of the Village District, noting that he wrote the town's application for a $500,000 state Small Town Economic Assistance Program grant to do planning for the project during his two years as a selectman.
However, it appears that he believes that Federal Road cannot sustain the development that Mr. Tinsley proposed Sept. 14 during a presentation at the Brookfield Library and that he questions whether his goal of doubling the town's commercial tax base is obtainable.
An e-mail message from Democratic Board of Finance member Howard Lasser, Mr. Davidson's running mate for one of the two other seats on the Board of Selectmen, indicated that Brookfield currently generates 15 percent of its tax revenue from commercial and industrial sources.
Mr. Tinsley said the figure is 14 percent.
Mr. Lasser's message indicated that Danbury, which has the largest shopping mall in New England and the Stew Leonard's shopping center, generates 24 percent of its tax revenue from commercial and industrial sources.
Frank Wargo, the chairman of the New Milford Economic Development Commission, said this summer that his town gets 30 percent of its revenue from the commercial side.
Brookfield's interim controller Jay Wahlberg said last month that Ridgefield, where he was the controller for 15 years, was getting 14 percent of its tax revenue from commercial and industrial sources when he retired from that position last year.
Mr. Tinsley said in a phone interview that he believes his projections are "conservative" since there is further potential for development along the southern corridor of Federal Road, near the Kohl's shopping plaza, as well as opportunities for light industrial development in the middle section of the road, near the cornfield on Junction Road.
"Maybe we only get to 25 percent, instead of getting to 28 percent, which would double it," he said. "But we also might get to 29 percent."
Mr. Tinsley has said that he believes the commercial revenue could double in roughly 10 years.
He said that his plans would not generate huge amounts of traffic on the northern or middle sections of Federal Road, indicating, for example, that his vision for the northern sections if the Village District streetscape that would be a pedestrian-friendly area now that much of the through traffic would be diverted with the expected opening later this year of the 2.1-mile Route 7 bypass.
Mr. Tinsley said that the southern corridor of Federal Road has a huge volume of traffic since it has long been a regional shopping area with big-box stores such as Costco and several furniture stores.
Mr. Davidson and Mr. Tinsley said that parking would be a concern in the Village District.
Both candidates indicated that zoning regulations would probably have to be changed to address parking in the Village District.
This week, Mr. Davidson again called for the hiring of a municipal planner to coordinate the town's land-use functions and its economic development.
Mr. Tinsley has proposed establishing a Brookfield Economic Development Corporation within a month after taking office, which would have powers under state Chapter 132 provisions to buy vacant properties in the Village District and "reconfigure" them, which would help address the parking concerns.
"I think that Bill Davison is waiting for a white knight to come along and help develop the Village District," he said. "Part of the problem through the years since this concept was introduced in the 1980s is that the town has been sitting back and waiting."
Former Democratic First Selectman Ken Keller introduced the Village District concept in the late 1980s while he was serving on the Economic Development Commission.
Some of the businesses in the immediate Four Corners area are concerned about attracting customers after the Route 7 bypass opens.
Mr. Tinsley has said that the number of vehicle trips is expected to be reduced at the Four Corners from 30,000 to 7,000.
Mr. Davidson said that while he will be ambitious in developing the Village District, he said that will take years to accomplish and that the town needs to seek other sources of revenue immediately.
He said that, for example, he has spoken with officials at the Housatonic Resource Recovery Authority, which has its offices in Brookfield, about establishing a franchise fee for trash collection in town, similar to the system in neighboring Newtown.
Mr. Davidson said trash haulers would bid for the rights to remove the residential garbage in Brookfield.
He said the town also should explore towers for cellular-phone service on municipal properties, noting that the town has poor cellular-phone coverage and there was a proposal to enact such a proposal some years ago under former Republican First Selectman Martin Foncello.
Mr. Davidson said he wants to review what other municipalities in Connecticut do to generate additional revenue and see if they could be implemented in Brookfield.
On another topic, the Democratic nominee said that he opposes Mr. Tinsley's plan to build a new library in the Village District.
Mr. Davidson said the project would be more costly, because the town would have land acquisition costs and it also would eliminate a portion of the commercial property available along the proposed streetscape.
"Those are both valid points," Mr. Tinsley said.
"However, I don't think that the municipal property on Pocono Road is a good site for the library because it's not a pedestrian district," he said. "For the Village District to be pedestrian-friendly, you need to have pedestrians. A library would help accomplish that."
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