Fetchick Quits School Board, Joins Council

By John Voket

In the space of 26 hours, Kathryn Fetchick transitioned from the position of vice chair of the Board of Education to filling a vacant seat on the Legislative Council. And a few hours after that, she was voted to chair the council’s Education Committee.

In a statement September 15, Ms Fetchick referred to the brief letter of resignation from the school board she filed with the town clerk one day earlier, saying she owed “an explanation to my supporters.”

“I made a commitment to the voters to effect positive change,” Ms Fetchick wrote. “I wanted the town as a whole to have confidence in the decisions made by the Board of Education.”

But Ms Fetchick stated that while she was successful in bringing issues to light, “I have not been as successful in effecting change. Instead fellow board members admonish me for giving my opinion to the public and asking questions.”

As an advocate for change, she hoped her fellow school board members would be at least be open to her ideas. But, Ms Fetchick wrote, it was “not the case on the Board of Education for some time.”

Regarding her election as the council’s Education Committee chair, Ms Fetchick said it would afford her the opportunity to “continue to advocate for positive change on the Board of Education.”

By filling the vacancy of departing councilman Chris LaRocque, she was also afforded a seat on the council’s powerful Finance Committee, as well as the Public Safety Subcommittee.

 Ms Fetchick said she hopes supporters as well as critics understand that that her desire is simply “to make a greater impact and represent the voters who elected me.”

The apparent move to nominate Ms Fetchick to the Education Committee chair was met with strong criticism and opposition by Councilman Gary Davis. Mr Davis was critical of Ms Fetchick during public comment at the committee meeting, and before Ms Fetchick’s nomination was formally introduced.

“I am concerned with your placement on the Education Committee,” Mr Davis said. “I’m only concerned that you’ve spent three years on the Board of Ed, and you have had a somewhat specific agenda of things you wanted to Board of Ed to do. And in your leadership role, you weren’t really able to convince your peers to do all those things.”

Mr Davis said the council is trying to “build bridges with the Board of Ed.” And he said if Ms Fetchick was to be nominated to chair the Education Committee, “there is going to be some friction.”

Setting Bad Precedent?

Mr Davis, a registered Republican who was denied a GOP endorsement to the council before winning his seat as an Independent Party of Newtown candidate, criticized the concept of Ms Fetchick moving from the school board to the council.

“I think it sets a precedent in terms of how people deal with one board, when they’re possibly not as successful as they hoped to, moving to another organization to take a leadership role to kind of move forward with the same ideas and concepts that were not necessarily accepted by that board the person was previously on,” Mr Davis said. “I’m concerned about the perception...and I’m concerned about how this is going to reflect on the Legislative Council as a whole.”

In a follow-up interview, Ms Fetchick said it was “no secret I’ve been frustrated, being cut off, not being allowed to ask questions or to try to make my point, it was just not acceptable. It defies Robert’s Rules. I had the floor, and David Nanavaty interrupted me urging the chairman to move on. We’ve given him the courtesy of going on about issues not on the agenda. If I can’t even speak, I’ve become ineffective.”

Following Mr Davis’ comments, GOP Councilman Benjamin Spragg made Ms Fetchick’s nomination to head the Education Committee and was seconded by Republican George Ferguson. At that point, IPN Councilman Kevin Fitzgerald nominated himself to the chair, but failed to receive a second. Nonetheless, council chairman and acting ed committee chair Jeff Capeci allowed Mr Fitzgerald to appeal for support.

“I think I could do more to move this committee forward, and let me say I share Gary’s comments with regard to Kathy’s nomination,” Mr Fitzgerald said, adding that the move provides the appearance that the council is acting in partisan fashion and playing a “game of musical chairs.”

“I think as far as serving as chair, we’re missing better opportunities,” he said.

Ultimately, Ms Fetchick said she sees the move as a win-win for taxpayers and core education supporters, while getting a chance to repurpose her skill set.

“I already have intimate knowledge of the school district budget,” she said. “But I would also like to see the council as a whole be more attentive to what’s going on in the district year-round...to be fully versed in the goals of the school district.”

Ms Fetchick said the community and its leaders on the council “need to figure out the whole facility usage, and one of the departments will be the school district. We need to see if it can be molded into the planning that [First Selectman] Pat Llodra will come up with, planning virtually demanded by critics on the IPN.”

In regard to the comments by Mr Davis and later, Mr Fitzgerald, Ms Fetchick minimized the opposition as nothing more than “political posturing.”

“I thought it was bush league, but not surprising,” Ms Fetchick said. “They didn’t have to do that.”

Bridge ‘Already There’

The new Education Committee chairman pointed out that Mr Fitzgerald, in arguing for consideration for the leadership post himself, acknowledged that he would not want to head up “a committee of one,” where he was opposed by three Republican colleagues at every turn.

“Mr Fitzgerald said he didn’t want to be a subcommittee of one, and it’s interesting because the Board of Education has become a committee of two; Lillian Bittman and Bill Hart have been making decisions and empowering the superintendent to make decisions ever since they both joined the board, and the majority just follows along.”

Prior to her resignation, and one day later, her move to the council, Ms Fetchick was sometimes a provocative critic of the local school board even while serving as its vice chairman.

As recently as the September 7 school board meeting, Ms Fetchick stood with her Republican colleague Debbie Leidlein in opposing the board’s decision to change the way it reports on its financial activities, from a transfer-based to an encumbrance-based system.

Ms Fetchick also recently testified at a hearing with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission following an appeal she made against then-board chair Lillian Bittman. Ms Fetchick said she filed the complaint after she faced criticism of her performance by fellow board members during a closed or executive session.

At the time, Ms Fetchick stated that under the FOI statute, she was entitled to have any criticism of her performance conducted in public, and that her right under the law was denied by Ms Bittman, who has since resigned as Board of Education chairman in favor of keeping a rank and file position.

The FOI Commission’s decision on that appeal has not yet been rendered.

As the Education Committee meeting drew to a close Wednesday, Councilman Robert Merola referred to Mr Davis’s comments while defending Ms Fetchick’s consideration for both the council and the ed committee chairmanship.

“I think the bridge is already there,” Mr Merola said. “Ms Fetchick has shown a passion for education, deals with the facts, and has a tremendous amount of integrity. There are other elected officials who have not been doing that during the education budget period, who knowing the facts still talked about draconian cuts and [things] like that.”