New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Rossi defends partial attendance at council meetings
WEST HAVEN — Some members of the public, who waited roughly 31⁄2 hours to address the City Council with their concerns last Monday, said they were disappointed to see Mayor Nancy Rossi leave at the moment they were invited to speak.
Rossi gathered her papers and left the room around 10 p.m. as the first speaker, West Haven Italian American Club President Paul Frosolone, was invited to speak.
It was the third time the public was invited to speak following public hearings on the proposed lease of 6 Rock S. to New England Brewing Co. and about a pilot program funded by a $1.3 million Department of Energy and Environmental Protection grant to encourage residents to separate out food waste for their weekly trash pickup. However, it was the first time the public was invited to speak on any other issue.
“To come for a portion of the meeting and then leave is unacceptable. You guys are still here,” resident Brandon Patterson said around 11 p.m., to the remaining members of the City Council. “What is going on?”
Patterson said he believes Rossi's presence at City Council meetings — in which she does not always stay to the end — is reflective of larger issues around transparency in the city.
“With what has been reported in institutions across our city and across the state, to just leave the one time you show up for a meeting, is unacceptable,” he said.
Rossi said she has been more accountable and accessible than past city mayors.
“I go to more meetings than any other mayor did. I also have a schedule,” she said.
Although she left the Aug. 22 meeting around 10 p.m., Rossi said she had to start her next day at 4 a.m. The meeting ended up adjourning around 3 a.m.
“They had already said everything they had to say. I'm easily accessible and people can send me emails,” she said. “There's no requirement I have to be at every single meeting. I am at many, many, many of the meetings.”
Rossi's attendance at City Council meetings has been sparse throughout the summer partly because there have been fewer meetings overall. The Aug. 22 meeting was the council's first public meeting in the month of August after a special meeting on Aug. 10 was canceled. Rossi took a three-week vacation in July. The last council meeting she attended before her vacation was on June 13, where she addressed public concerns raised during public comment before leaving.
Besides council meetings, Rossi has attended other board and commission meetings. As an advocate for the brewery proposal at 6 Rock St., she attended an Aug. 17 Zoning Board of Appeals meeting and an Aug. 9 Planning and Zoning meeting to testify in support.
Public trust in city institutions, including the mayor, has been low since last October when federal authorities arrested former Democratic state Rep. Michael DiMassa on wire fraud charges, alleging he had used his position as well as the authority granted to him by the City Council to steal more than $1 million in federal money intended to address community need during the COVID-19 pandemic. DiMassa has pleaded not guilty, but two of his three co-defendants since have pleaded guilty to conspiracy counts.
Following DiMassa's arrest and the release of a forensic audit report ordered by the state Office of Policy and Management that found the city did not provide adequate documentation to justify roughly 80 percent of its pandemic relief funds, some members of the public placed the blame at Rossi's feet.
Kim-Marie Mullin, a Republican running for state Senate in a district that includes West Haven as well as Milford, Orange and Woodbridge, criticized Rossi, saying most mayors stay until “the bitter end” of council meetings because they want to hear public comments.
During the public hearing on the brewery at the Aug. 22 meeting, Rossi's testimony went longer than three minutes after a timer set by the City Council did not go off as it had for previous speakers who were limited in their time. As members of the public groaned, Rossi took umbrage with the “rudeness” from heckling members of the public.
Rossi said that, more than her attendance throughout the duration of an eight-hour meeting, members of the public should be concerned about the level of respect in public discourse.
“To heckle people, to hassle people, harass people and scream from the audience, that needs to end,” she said. “Anyone who thought it was entertaining wasn't there.”