Newsletter Volume 2 • Number 11
If that sounds unusual, you haven’t been talking to the candidates for the town’s financial board, the Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET). In expertise, temperament and policies, the Democratic ticket, row A on your ballot, is positively… conservative.
“I began my career in PricewaterhouseCoopers and was trained as a CPA to minimize costs, maximize efficiency and keep tax liabilities low. We have to make sure we don’t have wastefulness by streamlining town government,” noted Matt DesChamps, who has 30 years of finance and investment experience, and until several years ago was a registered Republican. For DesChamps, a former volunteer firefighter, “Part of wastefulness is delay and short-term thinking. Refusing our firefighters’ request for a new engine truck is short term thinking. Now it costs even more. It’s a major missed opportunity due to backward thinking by a few individuals. It’s detrimental to taxpayers and its unfair to our first responders.”
Imagine a better Greenwich
Running alongside DesChamps is Elliot Alchek, who has spent a long career in real estate investing, including heading national sales of municipal bonds at Goldman Sachs. “I have a lot of Republican, financially conservative, friends. In the world I come from, people really care about their pocketbooks.” Alchek says they can’t believe how wasteful the current BET is. “Everyone knows paying $70 million 2 years ago for a school is a lot better than paying $112 million now, and that’s a lot better than paying $120 million two years from now. I can do that present value math and so can everybody else.”
Elliot Alchek has a long career in capital management including municipal bond sales.
Incumbent Leslie Moriarty, formerly a corporate strategic and financial planning executive, has had a front row seat to the BET majority’s reign the past two years. “Most department heads do everything they can to avoid coming before the BET or sharing information with them, because ultimately it’s used against them,” she observed. “That’s just no way to run a company or a business.” Moriarty should know. She has 18 years experience in Greenwich government, serving in many leadership positions on the Board of Education, the Representative Town Meeting, and the BET, in which she headed the budget committee when the Democrats took the majority for the first time ever in 2017.
Leslie Moriarty is an eighteen year veteran of town government and a corporate strategic and financial planning professional.
Fiscal prudence and democratic values
Deliberative and precise, Moriarty was raised a Democrat. “My parents were German immigrants. Persecution was always present. Democrats are the party that’s inclusive. We care about other people. We’re not just focused on what’s best for me.”
DesChamps has never wavered in his fiscal conservatism. What made him a Democrat a few years ago was freedom and the defense of truth and democracy. “The Democratic party demands freedom for everyone. Not a minority of people who decide what freedom should be for you,” he said. “When I had my daughters, that was another eye-opening experience to me about what kind of policies I want to support. I’m proud to be a Democrat.”
Alchek’s story is more visceral. “I have voted for Republicans and I consider myself a moderate. I’m an anti-fascist. I know what led to Hitler and Mussolini. When Trump rose to power… I’ve seen this story before. I had to do something to fight back.”
Moriarty, Alchek and DesChamps are running as a slate alongside Democrats Scott Kalb, David Weisbrod and Stephen Selbst. If the six of them get more votes collectively than the six Republicans on the ballot, they will win the tie-breaking vote and the majority. Vote for conservative fiscal management. These days, that means vote for the Democrats.
Campaign calendar
| SEPTEMBER 28 PHONEBANK Help us get our Democratic slate elected in Greenwich this November! Come make calls with us at our headquarters at 23 Benedict Place, rear entrance, between 5:30 and 7pm on Thursdays through November 2nd! |
SEPTEMBER 28 MEET AND GREET Meet our candidates and learn about their vision for our community and the issues that matter to you.September 28, 6:00-8:00 p.m. RSVP for address. |
| RSVP for Meet & Greet |
| SEPTEMBER 30 Meet Senator Murphy and join fellow volunteers as we knock on doors to tell them about our terrific slate of candidates. Swing by Greenwich Democratic headquarters (23 Benedict Place, rear entrance, parking available in the Benedict Pl Municipal Lot). Please bring a charged smart phone and comfortable walking shoes. We’ll provide scripts, training, and water. |
| RSVP for Murphy event |
Heading out of town this fall?
Don’t forget to request your absentee ballot! And don’t think your vote doesn’t matter. In a recent election, a candidate for the Board of Education won by one vote. It only takes a moment to make your voice heard.
| Volume 2, Number 11 • September 26, 2023 |
| Paid for by the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. |
| Greenwich Democratic Town Committee P.O. Box 126 Greenwich, CT 06836 |