Ridgefield has this strange name for the people who run the town. What’s the story with “Board of Selectmen” and “First Selectman?”
In most of the New England states, smaller towns are managed by a “board of selectmen,” usually three but sometimes five people. These managers have traditionally been “selected” to run their communities by the Town Meeting, which in many places, including Ridgefield, is the ultimate source of power in town government.
The Town Meeting, of course, is nothing but a gathering of the voters in the town. Town Meetings used to elect all the Ridgefield officials, but in the early 20th Century, as the town was growing in population, it was decided for convenience’s sake to have officials chosen at all-day elections instead of convening a meeting to do it.
Ridgefield’s first “select men” were chosen in 1715, Benjamin Willson, Milford Samuell Smith, and Joseph Benedict (Smith wasn’t born “Milford,” but was so called to avoid confusion with another original settler, Norwalk Samuel Smith — the towns each came from identified them). Throughout the 18th Century, town records invariably referred to these officials as “the select men.” By the 19th Century, the title became “selectmen.”
Over three centuries the selectmen have maintained pretty much the same responsibilities: running the municipal government, including highway maintenance, spending, public services and safety, and welfare. For many years, they were in charge of policing; that changed in 1955 when the town created a police commission and a formal police department. The selectmen still run the fire department.
Since the selectmen have authority over the budgets of all town agencies, except the Board of Education, they wield a considerable amount of power over such things as staffing and equipment.
After a couple of centuries, the Town Meeting decided that Ridgefield had grown to the point where it needed a part-time executive to oversee the day-to-day functions of the town. That probably occurred around 1900, when Ridgefield’s “summer people” were helping convert backwoods Ridgefield into a more sophisticated community.
The manager was called the first selectman, and initially he was picked by members of the Board of Selectmen. Today, voters choose the first selectman in an election contest separate from that for members of the Board of Selectmen. Since the 1940s, it’s been a full-time job.
In 1983, the three-member board was increased to five members to give it a greater representation of viewpoints. The part-time selectmen used to be paid, but gave up their stipends in the 1970s when the town was having some fiscal problems.
For 258 years, every member of the board was true to its name: They were all men. The election of Lillian Moorhead in 1973 broke that tradition. “I hope my election will encourage more women to run for office,” Moorhead said after her win.
Indeed, eight years later, the first woman first selectman was elected. And Elizabeth Leonard said she preferred to be called a first selectman, not a selectwoman. Oddly enough, the voters in 1981 had a choice between two women to break that barrier: Leonard ran against Moorhead for the job.—J.S.
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