Greenwich RTM to hear challenges to $500K grant approval

GREENWICH — The Representative Town Meeting will consider two procedural challenges to a vote to approve a $500,000 grant from a nonprofit called the Center for Tech and Civic Life for Greenwich’s Registrars of Voters.

The original vote was taken in January. It narrowly passed at the time, but some members raised concerns about the new electronic voting system used to take the vote.

The RTM agenda — also known as the call — has 11 items for the upcoming March 13 meeting, two of which are challenges to the vote.

The Registrars have also added a re-vote to accept the grant to the March agenda, in the event that either of the motions to rescind the January vote succeed. If the motions to rescind the vote fail, then the Registrars will withdraw the re-vote item.

The first challenge was drafted by the special Labor Contracts Committee and the second challenge was brought by District 10. The LCC and D-10 are chaired by Michael Spilo and Jane Sprung, respectively, and both are members of the Republican Town Committee.

There are no overlapping members between the six-member LCC and 20 members who represent D-10.

Both challenges have been referred to the Legislative & Rules Committee, which will assess the legality of the challenges before they proceed to full RTM.

District 10’s motion is much shorter than the one from the Labor Contracts Committee, but both aim to rescind the Jan. 17 vote.

“Resolved, that the Representative Town Meeting rescind the action taken at the January 17, 2023 meeting to ap

prove Item #10 as amended,” District 10’s motion reads.

The Labor Contracts Committee also introduced an item on modifying the electronic voting procedure, which will also be reviewed by the Legislative & Rules Committee.

The RTM will also consider a second, smaller grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life for the Registrars of Voters. This $9,600 grant was previously on the January agenda but got postponed. This money would be used to pay for membership dues for Greenwich to join the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, a project run by CTCL.

Some RTM members and residents want to reject any involvement with CTCL because Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg previously made a major donation to CTCL. The fear is that the nonprofit will influence the outcomes of local elections, but in grant documents submitted to the RTM, the CTCL said it will never touch live ballots or require recipients to implement specific policies.