Candidates Jason Auerbach, Warren Silver Outline Why They Want to Serve RTM

We are Jason Auerbach and Warren Silver and we have filed papers to run for Representative Town Meeting in Greenwich, District 8, to address the urgent budget and economic needs of our community.  

By way of quick introduction, Jason Auerbach lives in Cos Cob with his three children (two attending North Mianus School) and his wife Kitty. My wife and I have immersed ourselves in activities ranging from coaching several town sports teams to active PTA members. Warren Silver lives in Greenwich with his wife Nicole and twin children who attend North Street School.  We met coaching Greenwich town soccer and together, we have learned about many of our community’s pressing issues.

As RTM representatives we hope to accomplish three main goals: 1) Address the allocation of the town’s resources which is currently to the detriment of Greenwich residents and children; 2) Review historical and current town employee pension investment decisions made by the Retirement Board. How is it possible that Greenwich’s defined pension for the 10 years is ranked in the bottom 10% when we live among some of the best money managers in the world?; and 3) Ensure the improvement of education and preserve the safety of our children through effective speed enforcement.

Our local government has allowed the costs of our town employee pensions, health care and post-employment benefits to skyrocket out of control. Did you know that in less than 10 years these costs have risen over 100%? Where do you think this money is coming from? It’s coming from your children’s education amongst other cutbacks in basic services. We are, as the numbers indicate, at a point where pension, health care and other post-employment expenditures consume 21 percent of Greenwich's total revenue, up from 15 percent in fiscal year 2002.  In the meantime, the education budget has remained essentially flat as a percentage of total revenue over the comparable period and other basic services have suffered.

Our budget needs to be reflective of the priorities of our community today. We plan to work in support of residents’ priorities, as opposed to simply continuing with poor legacy decisions. While this is only the tip of the iceberg, we are excited to immerse ourselves in the budget and the needs of our community. Please vote for Jason Auerbach and Warren Silver on November 5, 2013 in District 8.

Jason Auerbach and Warren Silver

(Editor’s note: More letters to the editor regarding Greenwich elections may be found in our elections and government categories.

Greenwich Patch will publish election-related letters to the editor through Oct. 31.  To be considered for publication, letters must be submitted by 5 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013.)