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Two years ago there was far less activity and just 34 percent of the electorate, a smaller percentage than usual, turned out when Mr. Silvaggi edged then-Republican First Selectman Jerry Murphy by 10 votes. The only debate of the campaign was held just eight days before the election.
"You've got three good people running," Mr. Nepomuceno said in an interview last Sunday during a meet-and-greet event at the home of Tim Wright on Greenknoll Drive. "We're all different in our approach."
All three of the candidates were registered as Republicans as recently as this spring.
Mr. Davidson and Mr. Nepomuceno opted to change their registration to unaffiliated.
All three of the candidates worked together six years ago when Mr. Murphy toppled then-Republican First Selectman Martin Foncello by 312 votes in the GOP primary and then captured a three-way election.
"I'm knocking on a lot of doors," Mr. Nepomuceno said, noting that he recently had been campaigning in the Candlewood Shores area to generate support for the Nov. 3 election.
Political observers have said the election comes at a critical time for Brookfield. Its grand list declined last year as more than 100 businesses closed, and the town now faces a transition as it attempts to establish a New England-style business center near the Four Corners intersection on Federal Road as many motorists will soon be traveling around that area with the anticipated opening later this year of the 2.1-mile Route 7 bypass.
"You usually sit back and complain, so I felt that this year I would get active," said Mr. Wright, who indicated that he buys parts for the machinery in his landscape business from Mr. Nepomuceno's company, Samuel Dallas, in town.
He said that municipal taxes are the issue most discussed by voters.
"I'm hearing it not just from the senior citizens but from the people with children in college and the people with children in grade school," said Mr. Nepomuceno, the chairman of the Board of Finance for the last eight years. He has noted throughout the campaign that the local economy is sluggish and said it would be difficult to embark on new capital projects in the immediate future.
"I don't make promises that I can't keep," Mr. Nepomuceno said.
"My approach is very realistic," said the candidate, who also formerly served as the chairman of the Inland Wetlands Commission. "There is just so much you can do in two years, and everything that I have said in my platform can be accomplished in the next two years."
"It's nice to have additions to schools when we can afford it," Mr. Wright said. "I don't think that we're in that position right now. You need someone like Ernie who is pretty fiscally responsible for the town."
Glenn Rooney of Pocono Road told Mr. Tinsley while he was campaigning door to door last Saturday that one of his daughters called one of her teachers after she got to college and said that Brookfield High School provided an excellent preparation for higher education. He noted that she now works as a hedge fund manager.
However, he said that he believes the schools could be operated more efficiently with more cost savings.
In an interview, Mr. Tinsley, who is in his sixth year on the finance board, said there are 6,500 homes in Brookfield and that 4,500 of them have no children in the school district and 2,000 of them have children attending the local public schools.
He said that the households without children get an average of $2,100 in municipal services, while the households with school-age children get an average of $20,500 in services, based on a household that pays $6,200 a year in taxes.
Mr. Tinsley said his mother-in-law lives in a home that his wife's family moved into in 1960 at a cost of $12,000 and she now pays $6,000 a year annually in taxes.
"I believe that the whole town benefits from a strong education system," Mr. Tinsley said. "But it is an important perspective to look at the differences in services because you hear comments at the public hearings that the people without children in the schools don't support the school system. But they do, because they are paying a lot of taxes for services that they and their families don't receive."
Mr. Davidson said that he completely disagrees with Mr. Tinsley's analysis.
"He really doesn't know what other services those people are getting," he said. "People in that category, for example, might use the library on a regular basis."
Mr. Davidson said that it is important for all residents to contribute toward education, since, for example, studies show that the United States is falling behind other countries in the quality of its schooling.
Mr. Tinsley said that, per capita, Brookfield has the third-highest number of senior citizens among Connecticut's 169 municipalities.
Board of Finance Vice Chairman Robert Belden, who is one of the coordinators of Mr. Tinsley's campaign, said he believes there are many residents who bought part-time or full-time residences in the late 1970s and early 1980s that have enjoyed being in Brookfield and have decided to stay long after their children graduated from college.
Some political observers think that Mr. Tinsley is seeking to generate more support from fiscal conservatives that might be likely to vote for Mr. Nepomuceno.
The Republican candidate distributed a news release this week seeking for a charter revision that would automatically divide the town government and education budgets when they appear on the referendum ballot each spring, and his running mate for one of the other seats on the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance member Steve O'Reilly, criticized Mr. Nepomuceno in a news release last month, calling him "a fiscal fatalist."
Mr. Davidson, who served on the finance board from 1988 to 2003 and was its chairman for six years, has placed some emphasis on getting support from parents of school-age children, a group that he says has the lowest participation rate in the municipal elections.
"We have spent a lot of effort and money to talk to those people," he said.
"People moving from out of the area are hearing from their companies or other employees about the issues in Brookfield, such as spending for education and the condition of the roads," said Kellie Martone-George, a Brookfield native and a local Realtor, who hosted a discussion session at her home on Pocono Ridge Road last Tuesday night in which Mr. Davidson and other members of the Democratic ticket discussed their platform.
"They're feeling that Brookfield has too many issues going on, and they're not comfortable buying a home here because they don't think the real estate values are going to go up as much as in other towns," she said.
Mrs. Martone-George, a Republican member of the Board of Assessment Appeals, said that some people moving to the area are opting to live in Newtown even though the taxes are higher there because they believe that they will receive more municipal services.
Mr. Davidson said that, based on an equalized tax formula, taxes are 26 percent higher in Newtown than Brookfield.
"We're struggling to adequately provide for the children of our town," said Heather Luizzi, a native of the town who works at Shakespeare's Garden and is the sister-in-law of Brookfield High School Principal Bryan Luizzi.
"The roads are crumbling," she said.
Mr. Davidson said that he began holding the neighborhood forums during the summer and has had as many as four in the same week.
He said that he has done a "modest amount" of door-to-door campaigning, preferring to talk to voters in small groups for an hour or more so that he and other members of the Democratic ticket can discuss their positions on the issues.
"We want to talk to people in a comfortable environment," Mr. Davidson said, noting that door-to-door campaigning usually generates a small amount of dialogue.
Mr. Tinsley has been going door to door on the weekends for several weeks.
"I've been very active in youth sports leagues and with the families of the players," Mr. Tinsley said. "It would be easy for me to go to the field. I already know that arena. They already know me."
"It's harder for me to go door-to-door, and I think people appreciate that you take the effort," said Mr. Tinsley, who indicated that, if elected, he would periodically go door-to-door to visit voters and discuss their concerns about the municipal government.
Last Saturday, after parking his truck, which has campaign banners on the sides, near the end of Pocono Road he spent more than two hours speaking with voters, asking if he could post a campaign sign on their lawn and distributing literature at residences where no one was home.
Mr. Tinsley said the campaign tours have been educational, noting that he became better educated about potential traffic safety hazards on Huckleberry Hill Road after going door to door there last month.
He said that each of the voters that he visits received a hand-written follow-up note.
While taking a break from doing some landscape work on his home on Pocono Road, David Wabol told Mr. Tinsley he was pleased that the town recently paved the road, noting that in recent years he could hear trucks "clanking along" over the poor surface.
"I think in the last part of October people start to pay attention to what is happening in town with the election coming up," said Mr. Nepomuceno, who indicated he expected a big turnout of voters on Election Day. Typically, a good turnout in Brookfield has been in the mid-to-upper 40 percent range.
