MINUTES
WATERTOW=
N TOWN
COUNCIL
PUBLIC H=
EARING
TUESDAY,
SEPTEMBER 2, 2003, 7:30 P.M.
PRESENT: &=
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p; Elaine
Adams
&=
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p; &=
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p; Raymond
Hebert, Vice Chairman (arrived at 7:39 p.m.)
&=
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p; Robert
Kane
&=
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p; Jean
King
&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Raymond Primini
&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Paul Rinaldi
&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Richard Wick
ABSENT: &=
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p; Lee
Archer, Chairman
&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Paul Valenti
OTHERS PRESENT: &= nbsp; Meredith Robson, Town Manager
1.&nb= sp; Convene Public Hearing - 7:30 P.M.
Mr. Wick, Chairma= n, Ordinance Subcommittee, called the Public Hearing to order at 7:35 p.m.
Mr. Wick, Chairma= n, Ordinance Subcommittee, read aloud the following Notice of the Public Heari= ng for the record:
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
Watertown, Connecticut
The Watertown Town Council will hold a Public Hearing on Tuesday, September 2, = 2003 at 7:30 p.m. in the Trumbull School Library, 779 Buckingham Street, Oakvill= e, Connecticut to hear comments on the proposed “Appointed Officials Cod= e of Ethics Ordinance”. Copi= es of proposed Ordinance are available at the Town Manager’s Office (424 Ma= in Street, Watertown) and the Town Clerk’s Office (Town Hall, 37 DeForest Street Watertown).
Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 1st day of August, 2003.
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= &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; Meredith S. Robson, Town Manager
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 2
RETURN OF NOTICE
TOWN OF WATERTOWN
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
I = hereby certify that on August 1, 2003 I left a duplicate copy of the attached Corrected Notice of Public Hearing, Town of Watertown, Connecticut with Virginia M. Stewart its Town Clerk to be held on September 2, 2003.
I = further certify that on August 4, 2003, I caused a copy of said Corrected Notice of Public Hearing to be published in the WATERBURY REPUBLICAN AMERICAN, which newspaper has a substantial circulation in said Town.
I = further certify that on August 1, 2003, I caused to be set upon the signpost or oth= er exterior places nearest the Office of the Town Clerk and all other places a= nd signposts designated by the Town, a written copy of said Corrected Notice of Public Hearing signed by the Town Manager of the Town of Watertown.
I = further certify that all the above acts were done at least five (5) days before the holding of the Public Hearing on September 2, 2003.
Da= ted at Watertown, Connecticut this 1st day of August, 2003.
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&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; = Meredith S. Robson, Town Manager
TOWN CLERK’S CERTIFICATION AS TO
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING AND RETURN OF NOTICE<= /p>
I hereby certify that the attached Corrected Notice of Public Hearing and Corrected Return Notice of Public Hearing are duly recorded in the records = of the Town of Watertown, Connecticut, and that Meredith S. Robson was Town Manager on the date the Notice and Return of Notice were signed.
Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 1st day of August, 2003.
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&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Virginia Stewart, Town Clerk
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 3
Mr. Wick: I’d like to m= ake one technical correction to the document that’s been provided. On Page 5, the first paragraph at = the top, there’s a statement that says “3 members shall constitute a quorum”. This refers to= the makeup of the proposed commission. The proposal we’re including in here is for a 3 person commiss= ion and therefore it should be “2 members shall constitute a quorum”= ;.
2. =
Public
Participation
&=
nbsp; Franklin
Pilicy, 235 Main Street, Watertown, CT&nbs=
p;
06795
&= nbsp; Mr. Pilicy: I don’t hav= e a copy, I have not seen the actual proposed ordinance, but my comments will b= e, I guess, to the concept of having such an ordinance in the first place. It’s my opinion that any ord= inance of this nature is a bad idea for the Town of Watertown. There are four general reasons tha= t I will provide, and expand a little bit on those reasons.
&= nbsp; First of all I don’t think an ordinance of this nature is needed. Right now we have in place Town Ch= arter provision Section 306 that provides that the Town Council regulates the internal activities of boards, commissions and appointed officials. And there have been situations in = the past, there are 4 specific situations that I recall, where there have been = genuine ethical lapses on the parts of members of boards and commissions. In all those cases the Town Council dealt effectively with those situations.&n= bsp; There was an additional situation where there was a potential confli= ct anticipated. It was brought t= o the attention of the Chairman of the specific commission, the Chairman of that specific commission talked to the individual involved, headed off the issue= and shortly thereafter that member left the commission. So I believe that we do have a Cha= rter provision that adequately addresses the situations where there is a genuine ethical lapse.
&= nbsp; The second reason is a board or commission of this nature is very very costly t= o a Town in terms of money.
&= nbsp; The third reason is really part and parcel, or really leads us to the second re= ason which is the great expense. It’s an ordinance that in my opinion is capable of great mischief. It can result in ma= ny, many complaints filed with the Ethics Commission that are not really genuin= e in nature, that are the result of either a personal dissatisfaction with a dec= ision made by an appointed board of commission or other personal rights that sometimes may have nothing to do with the actual complaint, but these complaints can be generated quite easily at members of boards and commissio= ns and they’re very difficult to deal with. They also result in, if enough of = them get filed, then you get the cross complaints, then you get the complaints against the commission itself for not dealing with the complaints in the ma= nner in which the complainant believes they ought to be dealt with, but in effec= t it can freeze and cripple all of the other activities that are going on in Tow= n, not only with respect to the Council, but with respect to the other boards = and commissions.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 4
&= nbsp; The greatest reason that brings me here tonight is that an ordinance of this na= ture can be very chilling in its impact on getting volunteers to serve on our bo= ards and commissions. I think we a= ll know that sometimes it’s tough as nails getting individuals to serve = on boards and commissions, and an ordinance of this nature is only going to, in the end, be a chilling factor and cause people that otherwise might come forward and serve on boards and commissions to think again and say I don’t want to risk this kind of spotlight on my life if someone is unhappy with a decision that I or the board I’m on ends up making.
&= nbsp; Part and parcel to this is one section that I did see was there’s a statut= e of limitations which extends beyond the period it serves, so you could have pe= ople who are no longer serving. We= ll that’s I guess a separate issue, but the other part of this is you mi= ght have individuals that would rather resign than face one of these complaints= being investigated, and typically if not a public investigation, the fact that it’s on-going is a public investigation or a public piece of informat= ion which in this Town everyone will know what’s going on and what’s filed and I think it will unfairly taint members of boards and commissions.= I think any member of the public w= ith a personal grudge against any member of a board or commission, elected or appointed, will be coming forward with these complaints, and I don’t think you’ll have a shortage of complaints, but again they are very disruptive.
&= nbsp; The best example of the mischief that these types of situations can generate is what’s occurring presently in New Milford. I’m going to leave with you 3 newspaper articles that I saved from earlier this Summer about what’s going on in New Milford and I’ll read the headlines and just a portio= n of these so you get the sense of what can go on with these types of ethics commissions and complaints that will be spawned.
&=
nbsp; This
is the Sunday Republican of July 13, 2003 – the heading is “Eth=
ics
Concerns Tie a Town in Knots, New Milford Faces Nasty Spat”. The article begins first there wer=
e 2
ethics complaints, then 3, then was withdrawn and refiled followed by a 4
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 5
&= nbsp; Then the article goes on to provide= a lot of information about the individuals that were complained against came to t= he Council and insisted on being provided legal fees, paid by public funds, to hire attorneys to defend against the complaints on the grounds that they we= re public officials and that the Town had an obligation to pay the cost of the= ir activities as Town officials and that the complaints in their opinion of th= ose individuals anyway were not notorious so the Council spent a long time deci= ding and getting additional legal opinions about whether or not the Council had = an obligation to fund a legal defense. At least one attorney sent in a retainer letter seeking a $25,000 retainer. The Council voted i= n that case to pay a $5,000 retainer. Well once you’re in for a few hours, I think you’re in for all of the reasonable costs of defending any Town official that is subject to one of t= hese complaints. That’s wher= e it starts to get costly, if you have to pay to defend. Now if they have a lawyer then the Ethics Commission has to have a lawyer, so now the Town is going to be payi= ng legal fees for both sides of every investigation.
&= nbsp; About 2 weeks later on July 25th, again there is a front page story th= at starts off in the headline “Subject of Ethics Probe Files Suit Against Accuser, New Milford Government Tied in Knots”. And that goes on to explain what&#= 8217;s been going on for the interim two weeks, where one of the individuals that received one of these complaints found it so frivolous, at least in their opinion, to file a lawsuit against the accuser, and then again it talks abo= ut the flurry of complaints and the fact that Town government is basically fro= zen because no one wants to proceed until all of these ethics violations are resolved. And rather than rea= ding these articles I’m going to leave them and ask that the articles in f= ull be made a part of the public record. If anyone wants me to read them all, I’ll be happy to.
&= nbsp; The very next day, Saturday, July 26th, the heading is “Troubl= es Spawn Second Lawsuit”. = Now here’s another lawsuit between people complained against and the complainants and again it talks about the attorney that was hired by one of= the accused and the legal fees being sought, and at this point I stopped saving articles.
&= nbsp; This is not the first time the idea of an Ethics Commission has come up in Watertown. It has come up sev= eral times in the past and each time I’m aware of some informal discussions that were had. As examples th= ere was discussion about the capability of this type of an ordinance being abus= ed and misused unfairly against volunteer elected officials and volunteer appo= inted officials, and I think the end result of all of this is there will be fewer= and fewer people that will be willing to sit on boards and commissions if they’re subject to this ordinance.&n= bsp; There may be fewer people that will be wanting to run for the Town Council if they’re subject to this ordinance.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 6
&= nbsp; For all of these reasons I believe that it is a bad idea for Watertown. I think when genuine ethical lapses occur this Council is capable of dealing with them. I’m aware of similar ethical= lapse type complaints against department heads, and every situation I’m awa= re of, the Town Manager very quickly dealt with them so I think we already hav= e in place the means to deal with the genuine ethical complaint when it’s received, and a separate commission can be very, very costly in terms of mo= ney, it can be costly in terms of divisiveness, it can be costly in terms of distracting attention from the important mission of the Council and our appointed boards and commissions, and most importantly I believe it will re= sult in fewer people being willing to step forward and run for public office and= /or agree or seek appointment on our boards and commissions, and that I think is the greatest risk of all. So = again I would urge the Council not to adopt this ordinance. I will leave these articles and as= k that they be copied from the newspapers and made a part of the record. If anyone would like them read in = full into the record, I would be happy to do that. Just leave them?
&= nbsp; Mr. Wick: Please just leave t= hem, yes. We have 10 minutes left = for this Public Hearing and so I sense that if there are a lot of other people = who would like to be heard, we will probably Recess it, but we will continue no= w as long as we have the time.
<=
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style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &=
nbsp; Patty
Reilly, 96 Middlebury Road, Watertown CT&n=
bsp;
06795
<=
b>
<= b> &= nbsp; Ms. Reilly: As a former membe= r of the Ordinance Committee I understand the time that probably went into, and = the concept behind this ordinance and I appreciate the concept, but I have to concur wholeheartedly with Franklin Pilicy. I think this ordinance will genera= te multitudes of lawsuits and I can see it just becoming a nightmare all by itself. One particular part o= f the ordinance that I have a very big problem with is Section 110, Part B, about statements of financial interests for the employees would have to give to t= he commissions their creditors, their employers, the people in their household= s, their kids, I personally think that this is information, that for a volunte= er of the Town, that’s asking a great deal, and I think that people shou= ld be entitled to their privacy. I think for the amount of, the number of problems that possibly have occurred= in the past, I think this far oversteps what the Town of Watertown really need= s, and I would strongly oppose the ordinance.= Thanks.
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; Mr. Wick: I think most of us,= all of us shared your views on the financial filing requirements that were in t= he original model code, and we thought it would be appropriate only to require= it for people as it says in Section A, who are seeking to do business with the Town. It does not apply to volunteers or employees per say, it only applies to people who are seeking = to do business with the Town. We= saw the problem associated with having everybody, including most of us here, fi= le financial statements, and we saw everybody walking out, and we didn’t want that to happen.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 7
<= o:p>
<=
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nbsp; John
Bongiorno, 1254 Litchfield Road, Watertown, CT 06795
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; Mr. Bongiorno: I tend to agre= e with Franklin on a lot of points. = My parents live in New Milford, I grew up in New Milford, so I’m quite familiar with New Milford’s issues with their ethics ordinance. The individual who filed the ethics ordinance first filed it incorrectly and he filed it, it was basically political spite, he really had no basis for filing it to start with, but unfortunately the first person that heard it was the reporter, and the first place it ended up was on the front page of the paper, before anyone had said anything about anything, it was on the front page of the paper because you’re in a public forum so most of these discretions were people who feel there’s a discretion get brought up in the public forum and end = up on the front page of the paper, so you end up with a snowball rolling down = the hill, and you can’t fix it because you have 9 lawsuits to Sunday with this mess in New Milford. It’s an example, it might not necessarily be a good example, it might not have been a good person, the individual who started all the trouble. Maybe he shouldnR= 17;t have been on a board or a commission first.
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; See the problem is you have an ethics ordinance and then you have an ethics commission, so who is this super ethical person who’s going to be on = the ethics commission, and what makes them so much better than the individual w= ho is being accused? You have a problem because you have humans who are doing this. So if you’re going to have a commission monitor an ordinance, then you’re going to have humans who= can still hypothetically say, well you know I’ve know him for 20 years an= d he would never do that. He may h= ave done it. Just because youR= 17;ve known him for 20 years, you’re human, so the problem is, as odd as it sounds, you have an issue with ethics, it probably does need to go to (inaudible) portion of our Charter.
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; People who sit on these commissions, and I sit on one, you should take great pride= in that honor, cause in my opinion it’s an honor that you have, it’= ;s not a leg up on something to get something, it’s an honor that’s bestowed upon you to sit on a commission, to help the Town and help the 20 = some odd thousand people, so ethics should be a basis for your appointment there= , so maybe we need to have a larger scale of appointment and a better interviewi= ng policy before we appoint somebody to make sure of their associations. Maybe that needs to be done instea= d of a particular ordinance where humans, people who still sit here and there and everywhere have to make a decision on another individual, and in New Milfor= d in turned into a popularity contest, well I don’t like him anyways so let’s get him. You don’t want that here. D= o you want ethics? Yes. Have we had some gray area things?= Yes. Maybe we need to change some thing= s as to where you can be and where you can sit, and how many positions you can h= old, if that’s the case, then that needs to be changed on the basis and it needs to be changed on the Charter and it needs to be enforced. If you have people enforcing ethic= s, you better be darn perfect. Their= car better be clean, you better walk on water, because that’s a position I would never want. It’s = hard enough being on a commission and having everybody want a piece of you, but = to sit on the ethics commission you have to be just too darn perfect. I can’t see where you would = want that job.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 8
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; So if you had ethics guidelines that might be added to your commission positio= ns associated with the Charter so that the overseeing group is this group, that might be a little better and a whole lot safer, and if you open Section 306= and you manage that a little bit, because there are occasions when I can think = of that it might be managed a little more than it has been, you can avoid these ethics issues and you can avoid them without the public arena and the spats= and the embarrassment to the Town because ethics really come from the people th= at get appointed. It doesn’= ;t grow on you, you grow up with it and it comes with you. You have to know what it is. If you have to have it explained t= hen maybe we need some guidelines; you can’t do this, you can’t tha= t, you can’t do this, up front, instead of having it be a learning process. But the theory behin= d it, trying to be a nice clean government organization, that’s good. But having a commission, 2 or 3 or= 4 people, especially the night that there is only 2 people and that’s considered a quorum to make a decision, that would just be a debacle, that could never happen, you need more thought process than that.
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; There’s not a lot of time, and I want to let everyone else speak so those are my qu= ick thoughts that I could come up with based on what I read and some of the ordinance and what I’ve heard, but having some guidelines and having enforcement through the Charter, we need to do that. I firmly believe that. Thank you very much.
<= o:p>
<=
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nbsp; Nicholas
Reynolds, 921 Buckingham Street, Watertown, CT 06795
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; Mr. Reynolds: I am the Chairm= an of the Zoning Board of Appeals. = Over the last year or so I’ve been noticing that more and more that we’re told that this is a non-business friendly Town, and the more I = look at it the more I believe it’s true.&= nbsp; This ordinance is going to injure a lot of small companies that want= to come into this Town. A large company is going to tell us to go to Hell, and they can afford it. Small companies may not, but then = you have reduced to the burden of the accounting of these (inaudible) that you folks probably doesn’t understand, the ethics committee doesn’t understand, I don’t know who will understand. I don’t know what you would = do with that information, I don’t know who is privy to that information = or what is done to it afterwards. That is very important. We need the protection of privacy. But we= also need the up front open (inaudible) of what Watertown used to be. It used to be like that. Now it’s nuts. Anyone that comes to this Town, (inaudible) and this is on land that they’re allowed to do (inaudible= ).
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; So I just want to bring that forward to you and I’ve been reading the (inaudible) that were put out for the ordinances. Some I don’t understand. There’s one that I think if = this is passed, which I hope it isn’t, is one that, #6 is it? It’s #6 that says that any p= erson can take 2 years to file in court against whoever is again whoever (inaudib= le) the problem is that person may be dead, that person may be (inaudible) board. We don’t know; h= e may be in Florida. Now this Town = is going to have to defend that board and itself for something it knows nothing about because it happened two years prior.= Thanks so much.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
September 2, 2003
Page 9
<= o:p>
<= span style=3D'mso-tab-count:1'> &= nbsp; Mr. Wick: It’s about ti= me to start the Council meeting so therefore we’ll Recess this Public Heari= ng until a later date, to be announced, and therefore we’ll start the Council meeting in about 1 minute.
<= o:p>
3.&nb=
sp; Adjournment
Mr. Wick, Chairman, Ordinance Subcommittee, Closed the Public Hearing at 8:00 p= .m.
Respectfully submitted,
Richard Wick, Chairman
&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; = Ordinance Subcommittee
&= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; = Watertown Town Council
A= pproved: _______________________________
Lynn M. LaF= orme, Clerk