Council Member Fires Back Over ‘Whistleblower’ Accusation

By John Voket

Legislative Council member Po Murray, who is seeking a second term in November with the Independent Party of Newtown (IPN), fired back at critics who positioned her at the center of a controversy they say could eventually cost taxpayers as much as a million dollars.

The first-term council member also accused the council’s chairman and the chairman of the Fairfield Hills Authority of failing to provide adequate backup documentation that would substantiate their claims.

Ms Murray, identifying herself as a member of the town’s top legislative board, wrote to state officials early last year questioning the application of fair wage standards for work being done at Fairfield Hills.

The net result of that correspondence, along with calls and letters from other residents and IPN supporters to the state Departments of Health, Environmental Protection, and Labor, resulted in numerous project delays, legal and consultant costs, which the Fairfield Hills Authority estimated at $662,217.

First Selectman Joe Borst said that report does not fully take into consideration the additional expense of town personnel, and the time required on their part to respond to, research, and reproduce documentation on various Fairfield Hills projects.

The first selectman said when all was said and done on the matter, the full financial ramifications would likely approach $1 million. At the height of the multiagency inquiries last fall, Public Works Director Fred Hurley said he had “never seen the level of scrutiny on the part of state agencies being devoted to ongoing development projects at Fairfield Hills.”

Mr Hurley further questioned whether certain concerns justified putting construction and demolition on hold indefinitely.

The final outcome resulting from the complaints and allegations to the various state agencies were inconsequential, according to Mr Borst. The town and labor department reached an agreement on which projects at the town-owned campus qualified for prevailing wage guidelines, and a single retroactive settlement for some work on part of one parking lot was reached.

No penalties, fines, or other enforcement action against the town occurred, and there was no indication of any wrongdoing after both the health and environmental agencies found safety practices, construction procedures, and documentation were all being handled properly.

Inattentive Leadership

In an email release from the Independent Party of Newtown August 20, Ms Murray countered that the cost overruns on the project that she is being blamed for are actually a result of inattentive municipal leadership, botched planning, and inadequate construction management.

“The $662,217 in cost overruns at Fairfield Hills officials chose to highlight demonstrates our town government’s poor project management, poor community relations and failure to effectively work with the state to meet state regulations related to labor and environmental laws,” she wrote in a political email newsletter that is circulated occasionally by the IPN. 

Ms Murray described a pattern of behavior on the part of some town officials, saying, “The people responsible for Fairfield Hills are again trying to blame others for their failure to execute.”

The council member said she asked Robert Geckle, the Fairfield Hills Authority chair, and Will Rodgers, the Legislative Council chair, for detailed documentation and information to support the numbers identified in the one-page cost overrun summary. 

“I was told the one-page summary is the only document available,” she wrote. “Without more detailed information, there is no method to validate the costs Mr Geckle chose to highlight.”

Ms Murray insisted that her “single email to the state asking a question regarding the prevailing wage law did not result in more than $662,000 in cost overruns.”

“The amount related to prevailing wage issue identified in the cost overrun summary is $79,900,” she said. “The lease the town signed with Newtown Youth Authority calls for them to pay prevailing wage. The town tried to reduce its costs by misrepresenting the shared parking as private,” Ms Murray continued. “The state also realized that the Fairfield Hills Authority never actually leased the parking lot to the NYA so the land was indeed shared.”

She said the fact that Will Rodgers “continues to call me a whistleblower is a clear indication that the town was doing something wrong and at least some officials were aware of that fact.”

At a 2008 council meeting during which numerous officials, including then State Representative Julia Wasserman, voiced concerns about a flurry of correspondence to the state insinuating wrongdoing and citing environmental, health, and safety concerns on the campus, Mr Rodgers characterized a memo Ms Murray dispatched in her capacity as a council official as “whistleblowing on your own town.”

Mr Rodgers has since said he has no doubts that the campaign of organized complaints, calls, and letter-writing to state agencies that were bound to act on such complaints was spurious. In the case of Councilmember Murray’s letter questioning prevailing wage practices on demolition and parking projects at the town-owned campus, Mr Rodgers said, “I remain unconvinced that the efforts were altruistic in terms of their concern for fair labor or environmental practices. It’s pretty clear now that they were simply delaying tactics.”

The May 29, 2008, letter from Ms Murray to state Wage and Workplace Standards Director Gary Pechie says: “I am a member of the Legislative Council in the town of Newtown and I am writing to ask the Wage and Work Place Standard division of the Department of Labor to provide a ruling on whether or not the CT Prevailing Wage Law could be violated in a possible construction project on the Fairfield Hills Property in Newtown.”

Ms Murray concluded her request by stating, “I look forward to receiving a ruling on this matter so that we can be certain that the town would not be placed in a situation to pay prevailing wage after the fact when funding may not be available to do so.”