Meet the Candidate: John Olynyk

Name: John "J.P." Olynyk

Age: 39

Family Info: Wife, Dr. Jennifer Veit, is a chiropractor in Willington; two children: Will who is 6, and Michael, who is 3.5. 

Party and Position Running For: Democrat - Town Council

Previous Political Experience: 

New to government, this is my first run for political office.  I bring an analytical perspective and a consensus-oriented team-building style honed by 13 years of experience in industry and the corporate environment.  I have also worked as an adjunct professor at R.P.I., teaching a class in Project Management skills and tools.

Other Experience: 

Project Engineer, Pratt & Whitney

Education: S.B. Aerospace Engineering M.I.T., M.S. Engineering Science P.S.U., M.S. Business (Finance) R.P.I., M.S. Industrial Process Management R.P.I., certified Lean six Sigma, Six Sigma Black Belt, Team Building & Negotiation

Why are you running for office?/What, in your opinion, is Tolland's biggest issue?

I have two great concerns for Tolland that really speak to the heart of why I agreed to run for Town Council, and why I believe in that decision even more today than at the beginning of the campaign. The first is the educational system in our town.  I think the BOE has done a good job trying to obtain the most value possible from our town's educational dollars.  But I am concerned about our ability to sustain Tolland's educational capability and reputation for the long haul. 

This will take serious commitment to our children's futures and sustained efforts towards our town's future. For one thing, we need sensible development, consistent with our town's character, to help share the tax burden, and I think we may be able to be more supportive of some of the businesses we already have in town. But our town's educational needs really dovetail with what would have to be my greatest over-all concern for our town, and that is that we maintain the fiscal discipline and savvy that have been recognized as hall-marks of our town's governance. The days of easy credit are long gone, and scrutiny on fiscal performance is higher than ever. It should be pretty well known by now that our town's bond rating was recently upgraded, and it says a lot that independent observers are recognizing that solid fiscal performance. For reference, readers can check out Business Wire's announcement:  http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110922006719/en/Fitch-Rates-Tolland-CTs-Ser-2011AB-GOs

For people that don't click through, one of the "Key Drivers" for our excellent bond rating is listed as:

"Solid Management Team: Management is strong and its conservative budgeting practices and adherence to prudent fiscal policies has resulted in surplus operations."

It's really outstanding to me that the management team of this town has been able to earn this kind of reputation for responsible choices while really being focused on the long-term sustainability of our town. So when I hear the kind of goals the opposition is talking about right now, that really don't provide for the town's current operations, let alone Tolland's future, it has really reaffirmed for me this opportunity to help lead our team forward, and I'm really proud to be a part of it. 

What would you change, if anything, about how the council is run and/or communicates with the community?

One of the things I've learned over the years is that there are always opportunities for improvement, and we have to be self-aware enough to look for those opportunities on our team. One thing I'd like to see the town government do a little better is communicate the value-added by some or our activities, and the opportunities and risks inherent in our choices, so we can all make more fully informed decisions about what to support with our tax dollars, and which opportunities to pursue. 

Speaking of making more fully informed decisions, let's take our road maintenance expenditures as just one example.  It's one thing to say, "Let's cut that road spending to the bare minimum- My car can take it," or whatever.  But a lot of people don't realize there is actually a plan to which we have been working to that is specifically aimed at minimizing our expenses over the life of the roadways. We actually have an independent company that reviews our roadways and "grades" them- That's their area of expertise. Part of that includes essentially a determination of when a road can be "maintained" versus when it's in bad enough shape that actual repair is required. 

What the town leadership tries to do is keep the spending at a level that does just enough maintenance to keep the roads serviceable without requiring major repair work later on. So, yes, we could cut the road spending even lower, but at some point in the future those roads would be in such bad shape that major repair would be required, in terms of tearing things up and re-building the road.  But a lot of voters aren't really aware that that planning effort I mentioned is going on, and cutting the maintenance expenses further is only a "win" in the very short term. 

Within a short period of time the roads become less serviceable, and the cost to return them to a serviceable state far outstrips what that maintenance effort would have cost in the first place. So down the road (so to speak) taxes have to go up even more to do all that repair work. Or, alternatively, it just becomes prohibitive to do all those repairs, and things just go down-hill from there for our future residents. Similarly, I sometimes hear people say, "I don't have school-age kids any more, why should I care about education spending?"  Well, if the support of our children's learning and our collective future isn't a good enough motivator, let's take a look at how the town's reputation for educational excellence bolster's all of our property values, and what that starts to look like if that reputation were to decline substantially. That's something that still holds true when your kids have long since graduated, and it helps you whether your goal is to retire southward eventually, or you just want to be able to take out that home equity line to fund your other priorities. Sometimes you have to make sure people understand all of the ramifications of the different options we face. 

So as I've said before, good, effective communication goes both ways. As leaders we need to make sure we're listening to, and hearing, the town's concerns.  At the same time, we need to make sure the folks in our town are getting the information they need to make informed decisions about what they want our town's priorities to be, and what choices they want us to be making. Lastly, I want to close by taking a moment to thank the Patch for their hard work to support this kind of dialogue in our town, and many others around the state.  This kind of discussion is, in my opinion, absolutely fundamental to the healthy function of our Democracy, and whatever your political leanings, Dear Reader, I sincerely thank you for choosing to be an involved, informed member of the process.