FAIRFIELD — Bill Gerber is ready to put his financial background to use when he takes office on Monday as the town's new first selectman.

Gerber, a Democrat, credits his win in part to his campaign of addressing some local issues with major financial implications that he noticed crop up over the past four years, including a broken digester, reconstructing Penfield Pavilion without a flood study, a United Illuminating proposal to add monopoles through town and department credit card spending with loose financial controls.

"I was not going to win by talking about a vision for Fairfield that some people might not — they might say that's fluff versus showing how the actual management was happening as opposed to what they were reading in a newsletter," he said. "And it was tough and not always fun, but it had to be done."

Gerber unseated incumbent Republican First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick by 37 votes earlier this month — a result that took a week to confirm through a recount due to the near-split decision by Fairfield voters. Gerber, a former insurance industry CFO and 10-year member of the Representative Town Meeting, looked to showcase his financial prowess in tandem with his understanding of Fairfield's government operations to campaign on a series of fiscal and administrative improvements he hopes to bring to town hall.

"When I first started knocking doors, a lot of people, the impression was, why would we change things?" Gerber said. "And I wasn't sure if we'd ever get anywhere near this close. But over time as people started paying more and more attention, and it just became obvious to me over time as I was knocking doors that people were becoming aware that there were some big continuing issues."

Officials expect the Penfield remediation and reconstruction project to go over its $11.5 million budget, and a costal resiliency study that received funding in March has yet to be completed — a missing piece that has raised some concerns about environmental impacts within the local community.

"You don't just shrug your shoulders and say it'll all work out or it's a fait accompli," he said. "These are things that anyone who I believe has any background in doing analyses about costs and risks and benefits would have made sure they understood."

Gerber said weak financial oversight also enabled the years-long culture of credit card spending that a Human Resources investigation found to result in up to $21,400 in potential policy violations.

"For people that live and breathe actually being in these — for me, it was the corporate world — people would have definitely gotten fired over that in my opinion," he said.

Gerber said he plans to strengthen the town's recruitment efforts to staff boards and commissions with experts in their respective fields, like the Town Facilities Commission, which appears to have gone inactive over the past several years and could oversee construction projects like the one at Penfield Pavilion. He said he also wants to streamline inter-departmental collaboration so the town can vet initiatives like traffic safety projects or the Plan of Conservation and Development through multiple town offices and their respective areas of expertise.

The overarching theme in Gerber's vision for town hall lies in the numbers — financial analysis and long-term planning. He's identified Fairfield's 10-year capital plan, commonly referred to as the "waterfall," as a document that's missing critical cost assessments like age, condition,  maintenance, and inventory, bits of information that would allow the town to space out big-budget projects deeper into the future. 

He added that the town needs to continue improving its website, which was updated last month and lacks some of the archival town documents that were accessible in its previous iteration.

Gerber has amassed a transition team of nine members, including a pair of state representatives, two Board of Finance members and outgoing Selectwoman Nancy Lefkowitz. He said the group was set to start meeting with town officials late last week.

Gerber's inauguration is scheduled for Monday.

The outgoing Kupchick has spent more than a decade in public office between her stint as first selectwoman and four full terms as a state representative. Prior to that, she was a member on the Fairfield school board.

Kupchick said she will continue serving on the Board of Selectman after receiving enough votes in the election to get a selectman seat.

She was elected first selectman in 2019 as the reelection bid of then-incumbent Democratic First Selectman Mike Tetreau faltered amid a public corruption scandal involving illegal dumping tied of soil from a contaminated fill pile. Kupchick pledged to clean up mismanagement within town hall, and touted a more trustworthy, transparent administration and Fairfield's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as cause for a hopeful second term.

"I take great pride in the ongoing efforts of my administration to rectify two decades of mismanagement, public corruption and neglect," she said during a candidate debate last month. "We have faced significant challenges, including a global pandemic, indictments of previous department heads and the disposal of contaminated soil all throughout our town. In response, we've taken on a substantial task of rebuilding our town's government with a focus on transparency and accountability."

Gerber said he encountered some Democratic voters who said they weren't ready to elect another first selectman candidate from their own party because of the toxic fill pile scandal under Tetreau's administration. The now-victor said he sees his election as a chance to restore the town's trust in a Democratic administration leading Fairfield. The party also grew its numbers on the Representative Town Meeting and the Town Plan and Zoning Commission.

"I think there was a lot of crossover for each party, and that just means, for me, it's kind of an opportunity to — if we can make the headway that we want — to quickly, hopefully regain the trust of some of the people that weren't ready to vote Democrat again," he said.