The measure of a leader is not found in the easy days, but in the moments of immense pressure and personal struggle. By that measure, Fairfield’s First Selectman, Bill Gerber, was a steel beam.
While battling a devastating illness, Bill showed a level of courage and dedication to public service that should be an inspiration to every resident of Connecticut.
Consider the courage it took to lead from the front as he did. He coalesced with a citizen’s movement—led primarily by women from Fairfield, New Canaan, and Greenwich—to defeat the dystopian HB 5002 bill. It was a massive gut punch to the state’s powerful construction lobby, a modern-day “Minutemen vs. the Redcoats” victory that they never saw coming. And Bill Gerber led the charge.
Consider the courage it took to file for intervenor status against the “dirty deal” to sell our water rights, taking on the massive utility, Eversource, and its powerful allies.
And consider the quiet courage it took for him to sit in late-night Charter Revision Committee meetings, calmly guiding the ship and suggesting, in his own diplomatic way, that Fairfield’s archaic governance structure was broken and needed real reform. He knew the system wasn’t working, and he was trying to fix it, even as his time was running out.
On Memorial Day, he stood on the Town Green and led an impromptu community reading of the Declaration of Independence. It was a beautiful, unplanned moment that perfectly captured the principles he embodied. See the video here
We know now the debt of gratitude we owe him. He was a true public servant who never buckled, who never backed down, and who fought for the people of this town until the very end.
