Unaffiliated candidate takes on Democratic incumbent

By Wiley Wood

The first selectman position in Norfolk will be contested in this year’s election for the first time since 2009. Matt Riiska is running as an unaffiliated candidate against Sue Dyer, the Democratic incumbent. The Republican Party did not field a candidate.

Matt Riiska, a Norfolk resident since 1984, has served on many boards and commissions.

Riiska, 59, was born in Norfolk but grew up in Winsted, where his father taught at Northwest Regional #7 for 30 years. He studied industrial engineering at Utah State University but left without a degree to work as a designer in metals manufacturing. He has continued working in manufacturing in a variety of industries for 35 years and currently holds a position at Illinois Tool Works in Lakeville as a program manager. His group makes components for automobile interiors.

Shortly after moving to Norfolk in 1984 with his wife, Linda, and their daughter, Katie, he was drafted to join the Lions Club, becoming its president a year later. “It was the best thing for me, having to get up in front of people and run meetings, one of those trial by fire things,” says Riiska, whose community service in Norfolk has included a long stint on the Board of Finance. Still a Lions Club member, he also currently serves on the Board of Assessment Appeals and the Foundation for Norfolk Living.

Riiska points to a number of areas of the town’s operation that have not been addressed adequately: the Public Works Department is running two trucks so old they shouldn’t be on the road; the building next to town hall needs to be demolished; sidewalks in the downtown area are in poor repair. Riiska wants to institute an orderly capital improvement program to fund these projects, believing that the money can be found by increasing the town’s efficiency.

“The easiest way to save money is to look at a big-ticket item and say, OK, we’re not going to spend money on that this year, and everything else will go through,” said Riiska. “But if you look at the small items, whatever it might be, if you look for the most efficient way to spend money on those, if you save $50 here and $100 there and $1,000 here, all of a sudden, after the dust settles, we’ve saved enough money to go out and put a decent down payment on a truck.”

He believes that every aspect of town government, from the town garage, to town hall, to the local and regional schools, should be investigated by the first selectman to make sure that the town’s resources are being spent wisely. “We can’t just say this is the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always going to be,” says Riiska.

For his job, Riiska coordinates on a daily basis with designers, vendors, manufacturers and clients. “I love to listen to people,” says Riiska. He sees the first selectman as an important link between the town’s many volunteer organizations and as a spokesman for Norfolk in attracting potential new residents.

Riiska has considered running for first selectman for several election cycles. If elected, he sees himself continuing in the role for a decade or more—to give himself time to follow through on one or more big projects.

Sue Dyer, a vice-president at National Iron bank before becoming a selectman, seeks reelection.

Norfolk’s incumbent first selectman is Sue Dyer, who hails from Webster Groves, Mo., but who “married a native” and moved here in 1969. She remembers the Norfolk of those years, with Pallone’s pharmacy, Mubarak’s grocery, Polinski’s hardware, Johnny’s Chevron, Frank’s Automotive and the town’s two liquor stores, Whalen’s and Frank’s. She took a job with the National Iron Bank as a teller and left as a vice-president in 1999 to replace retiring first selectman Arthur Rosenblatt.

Dyer served on Norfolk’s Board of Education in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, a time when the Botelle School’s population hit 276 students. In the 1980’s, she was appointed to the Building Committee that saw the transformation of the Eldridge Gym into Town Hall. She also served on the Board of Finance from the 1980’s to 1996, becoming its chairman, and joined the Board of Selectmen in 1997.

Among the accomplishments of her 16-year tenure, Dyer lists: retiring the defined benefit pension plan for town employees; securing grants for Meadowbrook, for the ambulance building, for granite sidewalks on the village green and for a landscaped park in the city meadow; and bringing the consolidation of Norfolk’s primary school with Colebrook’s to a referendum vote.

Dyer, now one of the senior first selectmen in the Northwest Hills Council of Government, enjoys her role at the head of Norfolk’s town government. “I try to do my best,” says Dyer, “and to do the best for Norfolk.”

The candidates will engage in a debate at Infinity Hall on Saturday, October 24 from 10 to 11 a.m. The debate is sponsored by Norfolk Now, and all community members are welcome to attend.

Photos by Bruce Frisch.