Norwich preparing for appointments to energy cooperative
Norwich — The City Council appointments committee will take applications from residents or Norwich Public Utilities commercial ratepayers interested in becoming the council’s ratepayer appointee to the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative.
The new ratepayer appointee provision was one of several amendments to a state law passed in the wake of the controversy over revelations that CMEEC had paid for and hosted four trips to the Kentucky Derby from 2013 to 2016 for dozens of board members, staff, their spouses, family members and municipal leaders costing more than $1 million.
The new provision gives the governing bodies of each of the six municipalities with utilities that are part of the energy cooperative a direct appointee to the CMEEC board of directors.
The appointees must be residential or commercial ratepayers and cannot be employees of the utility, the city, CMEEC or any of its other member utilities or municipalities.
The City Council voted unanimously Monday to give the selection task to the appointments/ reappointments committee. Following Monday’s meeting, committee members Alderwoman Stacy Gould, Alderman H. Tucker Braddock and council President Pro Tempore Peter Nystrom set the schedule for taking applications and making its recommendation to the full council.
The application will be posted on the city’s website this week. The city charter requires city appointees to be residents of Norwich, registered voters and to be current on their city property taxes.
Applications will be due no later than Friday, Nov. 3 and should be submitted to the mayor’s office. The committee will conduct interviews during the week of Nov. 6-10, and expects to make a recommendation in time for the council to vote on the appointment at its Nov. 20 meeting, the final meeting of the current City Council. The new council elected Nov. 7 will take office at the first meeting in December.
Nystrom is running for mayor in the Nov. 7 election. Braddock, who lost a bid for the Democratic mayoral nomination, will be leaving the council, along with current Mayor Deberey Hinchey. Hinchey attended the controversial 2016 Derby trip, and paid the city the $1,945 recommended by the city Ethics Commission, estimated at 25 percent of the value of the trip.
In the only discussion on the issue Monday, Nystrom, said he wanted to “move this forward” in time for the current council to act on the issue. Alderman Gerald Martin, who is not seeking re-election, said he agreed the current council should make the appointment.
“We took the heat for this,” Martin said.