Council Chair Answers Assertions In E-Mailed

Call To Arms Of NHS Expansion Supporters

By John Voket

For the second time in just over a year, a vocal group of residents converged on a Legislative Council meeting voicing support for an initiative the council had no legal power to influence. And, according to Legislative Council Chairman Will Rodgers, for the second time those concerned residents may have been misinformed by e-mail newsletters and advocacy from town PTA representatives and the Independent Party of Newtown.

During the first of two public participation segments of the March 19 council meeting, Mr Rodgers segmented comments regarding an agenda item he had moments before stricken from the agenda. That item involved discussion and likely action on a special appropriation to bond $38.8 million for the construction phase of a Newtown High School expansion.

That item was removed from the council agenda because two days earlier, the Board of Selectmen voted 2-1 against authorizing the debt service to underwrite bonding for the project (see related story). But the council chair felt taxpayers who came to the meeting to specifically advocate for the project had a right to speak to the item because it had been, up to that moment, an active agenda item.

As residents moved through their commentary, it became clear to Mr Rodgers from the criticism being expressed against the two dissenting selectmen, Republican Paul Mangiafico and Democrat Herb Rosenthal, and from the demands by many for the council to toss out or circumvent the selectmen’s action, that those residents were prompted in their comments by content in at least two e-mail messages he had reviewed.

Many speakers at the meeting called for the council to “let the voters decide” on the whether or not to fund the project in a referendum vote.

“It’s clear to me that several e-mails, including the latest IPN newsletter, basically got all these people fired up under false pretenses,” Mr Rodgers said following the meeting.

In a brief interview Thursday morning, Legislative Council member Po Murray said, “I am sending this information as a concerned citizen, a parent, a taxpayer and a person who wants the best for this community,” Ms Murray said, adding that she distributes The IPN Express e-mail newsletter because, “I am representing the people who elected me as a representative of the Independent Party of Newtown.”

Mr Rodgers said he especially took issue with assertions in the IPN and PTA e-mails that Monday’s vote by the selectmen resulted in directly denying taxpayers the right to decide on the funding in a referendum.

“The selectmen’s action was absolutely not a vote to prevent voters the chance to support or oppose the high school expansion,” he said.

Mr Rodgers believes that the selectmen’s action, and particularly the No vote of Mr Mangiafico, was a last ditch attempt to gain clarity and answers to grave concerns he had about student population projections provided by district consultants noting a downward trend over the next ten years; the fact that the town of Portland was facing state action to recover $4.6 million because a school expansion in that town never fulfilled population projections; and because no school district officials were on hand Monday to address concerns or advocate for the bonding approval.

Mr Rodgers likened the assertion in this week’s gang e-mails to a similar campaign that drew more than 400 residents to a February 2007 council meeting, because they were told that the council had legal authority to reverse a previously authorized vote to develop municipal offices and a town hall at Fairfield Hills. Since that meeting, legal sources, including the town attorney, have weighed in concurring the council had no statutory power to do so.

In the most recent e-mail from the IPN, the first sentence states that Mr Rosenthal and Mr Mangiafico do not support the high school expansion project. Both, however, are on the record as supporting an expansion of the high school. Mr Mangiafico voted to support the project as submitted while he was still a school board member before winning a selectman seat last fall.

Mr Rosenthal has previously said he does not believe the scope of the expansion is justified based on a combination of downward trending student population projections, a bottoming out of housing starts, and other regional population and demographic trends. He has also said that the school district can likely achieve virtually every expansion aspect required to address a New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) directive to address space needs that has resulted in the school’s accreditation to be placed on warning status.

Mr Rosenthal said Monday that the Board of Selectmen’s No vote would not in and of itself kill the expansion project, and said later that if the school board moves quickly, they can potentially have the project back on track, as proposed, in as little as a few days.

While the addition of the expansion project vote to the selectmen’s Monday agenda was legally filed in the town clerk’s office March 14, the IPN newsletter noted: “The meeting agenda was not posted on the [municipal] website and [the IPN was] unaware that this vote was taking place…”

While the town website is not an official vehicle for the legal posting of meetings or agendas, it typically contains meeting schedules and agendas as a courtesy. Monday’s regular meeting of the board of selectmen was actually scheduled in December 2007, and was noticed March 12.

The e-mail circulated by IPN also asserted, “The Board of Selectmen’s action is also a surprise, as the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council did not take action on the funding resolution as of yet. The BOF is expected to take action on March 27th and LC on April 2nd.”

 Mr Rodgers confirmed that while the Board of Selectmen’s action Monday was inconsistent with the process utilized for authorizing the funding resolution for the design phase of the high school expansion project last June, there is no legal or statutory directive either at the local or state level directing selectmen to entertain the resolution for a special bonding appropriation following the charter mandated action between the finance board and council.

Ms Murray’s newsletter noted that the selectmen “made an attempt to override the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council’s approval of the Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan (which includes the approval of the HS Expansion Project).”

The effect on the CIP — a plan with no legal or statutory directive — has no bearing in this, except to be a collateral victim of the action, according to Mr Rodgers. Since the appropriation, a legal resolution was not approved by the selectmen in the process, the item simply goes unbonded, collaterally saving a 1.4 percent increase in the local property tax —according to figures provided in that same newsletter, as well as a separate e-mail to The Bee from IPN member Ben Roberts.

The IPN newsletter concluded: “We believe the Legislative Council has already acted to approve the HS Expansion Project in the capital plan and it is the duty of the Board of Selectmen to carry out the decision of the Legislative Council.”

In the case of a regular appropriation, it is standard procedure for the council to direct the selectmen to set a town meeting or referendum on the spending, Mr Rodgers explained. The finance board and council’s action to approve the CIP has no relation to the special appropriation to bond the high school construction. “There is a distinct difference between the CIP and funding this special appropriation,” Mr Rodgers said.

Mr Rodgers said a final assertion in both the IPN and PTA e-mails that the town leaders must now allow the voters to decide is disingenuous. If taken in context, if the selectmen had approved the bonding Monday, the resolution would have moved back to the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council, which would each have an opportunity to reject the proposal before taxpayers had an opportunity to authorize the spending in a referendum or town meeting.

The idea that the finance board would simply rubber stamp the selectmen’s approval was thrown in doubt Monday when finance board member Michael Portnoy told selectmen that his board was concerned that fixed operating costs for the addition were reported to have escalated from $600,000 to almost $2 million annually two days after the finance board passed the CIP that included bonding the expansion.

A private meeting among finance, council, and school officials, along with Mr Mangiafico, scheduled for Monday is expected to address some resolution to the selectman’s concerns which precipitated his No vote on the bonding. If the school board returns to the selectmen with a re-issued resolution, its approval could put the entire project back on track as proposed as early as next week.