Selectmen Launch Open Forum, Approve HS Bonding

By John Voket

The Board of Selectmen met twice in recent days, but under decidedly different circumstances. The first meeting was held at Edmond Town Hall April 30, the first in what is hoped to be a series of open sessions, where there is no agenda except to listen to and interact with residents.

The second was a regular meeting May 4, during which the board approved going out to bond for the construction phase of the high school addition.

Although the first interactive selectmen’s session, the brainchild of Republican Selectman Paul Mangiafico, was attended by only one resident and two other elected officials, it provided an opportunity for one of Democratic Selectman Herb Rosenthal’s most vocal public critics to go head-to-head with the selectman.

Richard Cole of Main Street is a regular letter-writer to The Newtown Bee. In one of his most recent letters, he continued to take issue with Mr Rosenthal’s advocacy for building a new town hall at Fairfield Hills.

“Herb, why in these economic times, do you continue to support and spend for a new town hall when the Board of Education is considering laying off teachers that are critical to the children’s development?” Mr Cole wrote.

Mr Cole also took Mr Mangiafico to task for having “once spoke strongly against building a new town hall at the expense of education.”

And he accuses Fairfield Hills Authority Chairman Robert Geckle of referring questions to others when asked about Fairfield Hills accounting.

“There is so much secrecy...so much conjecture,” Mr Cole complained to the selectmen during the open forum. “Just tell us the plan, and how much money will be spent?”

Mr Rosenthal then responded that all the financial information is public and available, and all the financial updates are made each month at Fairfield Hills Authority meetings, and are viewable online in the minutes.

“Did you ever ask the finance director?” Mr Rosenthal asked Mr Cole.

“No,” Mr Cole responded. “Why didn’t you tell us? I don’t have time to look [the information] up myself.”

Mr Cole then went on to say he recently joined the Independent Party of Newtown (IPN), “not to kill anybody, just to ask questions.”

“I’ve lived in a lot of towns and seen bad things happen in every one,” he said.

Mr Mangiafico then thanked Mr Cole for being the only private citizen to attend the forum, along with Police Commissioner Bruce Walczak, who is also the chairman of the IPN, and Republican Councilwoman Patricia Llodra, who has since announced her candidacy for first selectman.

“This meeting started with contention,” Mr Mangiafico said. “I think the whole issue of Fairfield Hills is poorly communicated, not by design, and partly it’s our own fault. The responsibility doesn’t lie with the Fairfield Hills Authority — it lies with the Board of Selectmen.”

Mr Rosenthal complained that “some people get all the answers to their questions, but don’t like them, so they claim there’s no answers.”

Mr Mangiafico said he agreed. “When the answers are not what people expect they get upset.”

Mr Walczak also requested that selectmen entertain the possibility of developing a report to outline possible future costs related to Fairfield Hills.

“We have no sense of a cost to complete it. Will it be $5 million, $10 million, $20 million?” the commissioner asked.

Mr Walczak also chatted at length with the selectmen about the possibility of a future expansion or relocation of Police Headquarters, possibly to Fairfield Hills.

During the regular selectmen’s meeting May 4, the board sealed the deal on a new high school expansion by completing the last legal step in the process by approving the bonding.

Mr Rosenthal moved the motion, but questioned why the town had to bond the full $38.8 million approved by voters, when the Public Building and Site Commission verified the project bids came in $1.1 million under budget.

Mr Borst said that the town’s bond counsel issued a ruling that selectmen would have to begin the entire bonding procedure from the beginning if they changed the amount of the bond at this final stage. Town Finance Director Robert Tait then reassured the selectmen that any bonding would be made to meet expenses as presented, and that in the unlikely event of slightly overbonding, the surplus would immediately be applied to reducing the debt service line in the next year’s budget.

He confirmed that the $1.1 million difference between the approved bonding and the final bids would not go into a building contingency fund administered by the school district.

Selectman Mangiafico heralded the outcome of the bidding, which dropped the estimated cost for construction more than $7 million since the original bids for the project were calculated in 2008.

“This is good news coming out of the country’s economic downfall,” Mr Mangiafico said.