Council Reviews, Again, Budget Ballot Question

BY JOHN VOKET

After receiving confirmation that a waiting period and state review of local questions on a budget ballot are not required, the Legislative Council passed a modified version of a motion already made and passed at its last meeting. This time, however, the vote was not unanimous.

Independent Party of Newtown representatives Gary Davis and James Belden opposed the motion, which was made by Councilman Ben Spragg and passed 8-2 with two members absent. He and seven other council representatives on hand for the special meeting April 21 concurred with a previously written legal opinion that advised against the town placing a ballot question during the budget referendum.

Mr Davis articulated the text of such a question Wednesday: “Shall the budget be increased if the local referendum was to fail?” Mr Davis said that having such a question, which he contends is a “local question” and permissible by the charter, would greatly help the council in readjusting a new proposal if the initial budget vote went down.

The entire reason behind this week’s special meeting following a previous vote on the matter came about after an interpretation of a state statue was misstated by the town attorney two weeks earlier.

Faced with an impromptu question during an April 14 Legislative Council meeting, Town Attorney David Grogins said he did something that he should not have: responded with a verbal opinion based on what he recalled versus doing the necessary research to ensure he was correct.

As a result, Mr Grogins told The Bee that he erred in verbally advising the council about a 45-day waiting period he believed the state reserved for reviewing proposed ballot questions. Mr Grogins confirmed prior to this week’s council meeting, that while questions proposed for an election ballot require a 45-day review period, local questions proposed for a local budget referendum do not.

Council Chairman Jeff Capeci said that when he received confirmation of this error, he decided to call a special meeting for April 21, to formally announce the correct information and to retire any additional discussion on the issue, at least for the time being.

Mr Grogins said that he specifically attended the council meeting April 14 to answer questions about his researched and written legal opinion regarding whether or not the town should consider posing one or more questions on the upcoming budget ballot. He said that advice still stands.

“I was asked to write an opinion on advisory questions and my opinion was not to do them,” he said. “And my opinion stands on placing advisory questions.”

Mr Grogins said that faced with a suggestion from Councilman Gary Davis that evening about specific wording of a question that might make it permissible based on the Newtown Charter enabling what are deemed to be “local questions,” he read from a part of the Connecticut General Statutes regarding referendums that outlined the 45-day requirement.

But Mr Capeci said he was subsequently contacted by Democratic Registrar LeReine Frampton, who said that state statute only applied to questions on an election ballot. Upon notifying Mr Grogins about the concern, the Secretary of the State’s (SOTS) office was contacted and confirmed that there was no waiting period required for questions that are proposed for a budget ballot.

That call also yielded further concurrence that Mr Grogins’ written recommendation was appropriate. Mr Grogins said SOTS Attorney Theodore Bromley indicated that placing questions on a local budget ballot was not advisable.

Mr Grogins said in the course of discussion at the April 14 council meeting he was posed an impromptu question by Mr Davis posing suggested wording of a possible question that would be legal under the local charter, and the town attorney responded and “gave an opinion off the top of my head.”

“I raised the point, but I had not researched the point,” Mr Grogins said, adding that the waiting period caveat was not included in the section of the state statutes on elections, but incorporated into language in the referendum section of the statutes.

“The 45-day [review period] applies to local questions proposed for an election ballot only,” the town attorney said. Mr Grogins said he provided the verbal ruling in the moment, and in an attempt to answer the question that was posed by Mr Davis.

Mr Capeci said his motivation for calling a council meeting April 21 was in the spirit of transparency.

“I’m concerned some members of the council acted on the information that was provided to us [verbally] during the last meeting, which was incorrect,” Mr Capeci said.

The council chairman said that while he does not believe that having the correct information would have changed the outcome of the vote — which unanimously supported a motion to not include questions on the upcoming budget referendum ballot — he felt the opinion Mr Grogins gave in the heat of the moment “might have swayed some council members” to vote against including the questions.

During the April 14 discussion Mr Grogins said his worst fear in the event a budget question was included in a referendum, was that a single taxpayer could invalidate the entire budget vote if they successfully contended the question influenced the referendum’s outcome.

Had this week’s vote approved placing a question on the ballot, by charter, it would have been too late to include on the April 27 ballot. But Mr Davis pointed out that if the first budget vote fails, it would provide the council an opportunity to further discuss and consider placing a question on the subsequent ballot.