Ansonia officials cite precedent for filling school board position

ANSONIA — City officials say they have found the definitive answer in the ongoing court dispute over who fills vacancies on its Board of Education.

And they have the minutes to prove their contention that they get to make the decision. They intend to share that information with the Milford Superior Court judge assigned to resolve the question.

The school board says it is not standing down from its position that the seat should be chosen by them, citing state statute.

In November, Joseph Jeanette resigned from the Board of Education after he was elected a third ward alderman.

On Nov. 22, 2019, both the school board and the Aldermen raced to fill the vacancy. During meetings that took place hours apart, the school board chose Phil Tripp, a Republicanturned-Democrat who just lost the mayoral election to David Cassetti. The Aldermen selected Republican Bobbi Tar, who works as Shelton’s truant officer and youth outreach coordinator.

Both sides called organizational meetings on Dec. 6 which led to a shouting match and police response as the two different boards elected two separate sets of officers.

A compromise was later reached when Beth LaBerge was selected as the temporary replacement until a Superior Court judge rules on who gets to fill the seat.

Who controls the position is important because it represents a decisive seventh vote in a school board that currently has three Republicans, two Democrats and an independent.

Last week, Corporation Council John P. Marini; Joshua Shuart, the Board of Aldermen president and a Sacred Heart University professor; and Alexander Lauber, one of Shuart’s students, searched through the yellowed pages of dusty binders stockpiled in a storage room at City Hall.

The record search was the city’s way of proving that it had, in the past, filled an empty seat and therefore has as much — or more — right to fill an open seat as the school board since both sides can now argue precedent.

The trio uncovered five instances dating back to 1968 in which the Board of Aldermen filled school board vacancies.

“Until the City Charter was revised in 1966, the mayor appointed the members of the Board of Education,” Marini said. “It was in the 1966 revision that the Board of Education became an elected position.”

That same 1966 revision gave the Aldermen the authority under Charter Section 143 to fill all vacancies involving elected officials, he said.

Fred Dorsey, one of the city’s Board of Education lawyers, is not buying the city’s reasoning. The state legislature allows school boards to fill their own vacancies, he said.

“Ansonia Board of Education vacancies, by statute and Special Act, are to be filled by the remaining members of the Board of Education unless those members do not act in a timely fashion,” Dorsey argued.

“To the extent that the Board of Aldermen may have filled Board of Education vacancies in the past, such procedure was simply incorrect and without legal effect, except in those cases where timely action was not taken by the then-existing Board of Education,” he said.

“In the present case, the Board of Education took timely action and fulfilled its duty to appoint a member to the November 2019 vacancy on the Board of Education, rendering the later actions by the City unnecessary and invalid,” Dorsey said.

History lesson

In 1966, Thomas Slade told Carmen Pitney, then the Board of Education’s president, that he was resigning. The Aldermen convened a special meeting to appoint a replacement.

During that meeting, an Alderman questioned whether a court had ruled “it was proper for a replacement to be made by the Board of Education.”

Then-Corporation Counsel Carl R. Ajello, who later became the state’s attorney general, told the Aldermen that there had been a problem in several cities with the state statute that gave Boards of Education the right to fill their own vacancies.

He said the state legislature revised that section of the law to allow municipalities whose charters already addressed how elected office vacancies would be filled to make the final choice, according to Ajello.

He told the aldermen it was their duty “to make the replacement,” according to the minutes from that 1966 meeting.

“The language in these minutes makes any type of interpretation crystal clear,” Marini said. “It rests with the Board of Aldermen.”

Ansonia’s Aldermen filled vacancies four more times, according to the trio’s research: in 1971, 1980, 1997 and 2013.

“We will have a good faith discussion with the Board of Education about our findings,” Marini said. “If we need to present these to the court, we will. We want this resolved once and for all time.”

Dorsey said the school board also has precedent on its side.

In 2017, the Aldermen did not act when the Board of Education chose Fran DiGiorgi, who had just lost a bid for re-election to replace Carmen Pitney, who had died. Nor did they challenge the July 31, 2019, appointment of Beverly Tidmarsh to fill the unexpired term of John Izzo, who resigned, Dorsey countered.

“The city’s flawed rationale is based on previous similar attempts it has used to provide half-truths to Ansonia citizens hoping to produce public backing for a city platform that has no support in the law,” Dorsey charged.

“The Board of Education will maintain its statutory duty to ensure that the educational interests of the State of Connecticut are protected for Ansonia public education,” he said. “The citizens and students of Ansonia deserve better treatment than what they are receiving from the City Administration.”