Board of Reps lacked transparency in BOE ‘deal’

The BOR are our elected officials. They are supposed to represent us. Their lack of transparency and refusal to acknowledge our voice is of serious concern, leading to questions regarding their ethics, motivations, and most importantly their fitness to se

In my letter to the editor, “Burke is ‘eminently' qualified for Stamford BOE,” I suggested possible motives for why the Board of Representatives (BOR) appointed Jackie Pioli to the Board of Education, thereby ignoring voters and deviating from decades of precedent by outright rejecting the Stamford Democratic City Committee's (SDCC) endorsed candidate.

However, after reading BOR member Megan Cottrell's letter, “Why I voted for Jackie Pioli for the BOE,” the motive is crystal clear, and considerably worse than anything I originally suggested.

The appointment of Jacki Pioli was clearly a backroom deal orchestrated by a small group of members of the BOR and the executive committee of the Stamford Education Association (SEA) — in a process that was neither transparent nor democratic. This is especially egregious as this appointment willfully set aside the votes of thousands of Stamford citizens who forcefully rejected Ms. Pioli in her last election. This should concern all residents of Stamford, not just Democrats.

On Monday, Feb. 6, the Stamford Board of Representatives voted 24-16 to appoint Jackie Pioli to fill the seat on the Board of Education (BOE) left vacant by the resignation of Ben Lee. Jackie Pioli was selected over Jeanninne Burke; the candidate recommended by the Stamford Democratic City Committee from a pool of five candidates interviewed by the SDCC.

As Megan Cottrell's recent letter described in great detail, the selection process for appointing Ben Lee's replacement was manipulated to circumvent procedures in place for decades. Instead of doing their jobs as representatives of their constituents, members of the BOR bent to the will of the executive committee of the SEA, a special interest group.

The roles of the SDCC and the BOR in filling vacancies for Democratic seats is clear: the SDCC, as the elected body of Democrats, interviews, vets and votes as an organization to recommend a replacement candidate and the BOR either approves or rejects the candidate the party recommends.

This two-step process, involving two entities, ensures checks and balances — no single entity holds the power to both nominate and then choose an appointee. This is similar to how our Supreme Court justices are selected, and even the appointees to Stamford's other myriad boards and commissions.

This is not what happened with Ms. Pioli's appointment.

Instead, when Lee resigned and the SDCC publicly announced the search for a replacement candidate, BOR members were already working behind the scenes with the president of the SEA to ensure Ms. Pioli — a controversial former BOE member who served one term and was soundly defeated by the voters when she ran for reelection in 2021, would be appointed.

The BOR did not invite other applicants to interview for the seat — there is no process for the BOR to do so because this is not their role. The executive committee of the SEA did not interview any other applicants before making their endorsement of Ms. Pioli, and outright declined to consider any other candidate when their endorsement of Ms. Pioli became public. Instead, they stood by an endorsement that was made by the executive committee without input from their own members and then organized an intense persuasion campaign aimed at selling Pioli to members of the BOR.

Finally during the meeting of the BOR vote on the appointment, the public was prevented from speaking before the vote was cast— especially troubling since many of the speakers were there to voice opposition to Ms. Pioli appointment back on the BOE.

Ms. Pioli now sits on the BOE, beholden to both a select group of members of the BOR and the executive committee of the SEA rather than the Stamford community.

The BOR are our elected officials. They are supposed to represent us. Their lack of transparency and refusal to acknowledge our voice is of serious concern, leading to questions regarding their ethics, motivations, and most importantly their fitness to serve in Stamford's city government.

This isn't the first-time certain members of the BOR have leveraged their power and sown chaos to impede progress in our city. I urge all Stamford residents to pay attention to the business being taken up by the BOR and how their representatives vote on issues, projects, and most certainly the upcoming city budget. There is a lot at stake. They work for us and must be accountable to us. Let's let them know we are paying attention and that failing to actually represent our best interests will be felt at the ballot box in 2025.