Did schools chief try to sway vote?
Watchdog group files complaint with state
BETHEL — A local watchdog group has filed a complaint against school officials claiming the superintendent’s weekly newsletter illegally promoted approval of the town budget.
Bethel officials have faced seven similar complaints from the State Elections Enforcement Commission since 2011. The commission found officials violated rules in three of those cases and issued a $1,000 fine to the first selectman in one of the complaints.
The Bethel Action Committee claims in a complaint mailed this week that Superintendent Christine Carver and the school board violated a state statute preventing local officials from influencing a referendum through town funds or a “community notification system,” where residents receive updates on local news and events.
Carver said she intended to explain in her newsletter that the municipal budget still includes money for the schools, even though the education budget passed in the first referendum.
“I pride myself on being an ethical person,” she said. “It really was not meant to be any type of advocacy. It was really informational in nature.”
The complaint claims Carver violated a rule requiring these “community notification systems” be available to all residents because the newsletter was only sent to some people in town. However, the law
states residents must be able to opt into receiving these notifications, which
any resident is able to do with the school newsletter.
Carver said 300 to 400 residents without children in the school system opt into the newsletter.
The newsletter, which
was sent on Friday, states the date of the upcoming referendum on the municipal budget and what parts of the town budget include money for the schools.
“The Town budget contains our maintenance account, school debt for renovations and capital non-reoccurring (band uniforms and resurfacing of track),” the newsletter said. “It is important to remember that the town budget in many ways also supports the schools.”
The “tenor” of this message is that residents should vote in favor of the budget, said Cynthia McCorkindale, one of the leaders of the Bethel Action Committee.
“If I read that, that’s not telling me to vote ‘no,’ ” she said. “That’s telling me to support this budget.”
Carver said this is not what she meant. “When I said ‘support’ I really meant the town budget ... supports the funding of the schools to some degree,” she said.
First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker, who was fined $1,000 in 2016 for two letters he sent on behalf of the town that the commission found would benefit his re-election, said he is confident the complaint will be dismissed.
“I don’t think it has any merit,” Knickerbocker said. “It just carries basic information that voters need to know to vote on their budget. It’s just that simple.”
But Billy Michael, founder of the Bethel Action Committee, said he considered the newsletter’s language “laudatory” and that is prohibited by state law.
“She doesn't say vote ‘yes’ for the budget, but it’s very clear that if you don’t vote ‘yes’ it hampers your band uniforms,” he said.
Carver faced a similar complaint over a 2015 newsletter that described the “potential for significant impact to both curricular and extracurricular programs within the schools” if the education budget failed.
That time the State Elections Enforcement Commission dismissed the complaint because the date for the referendum had not yet been set. This law only applies when a referendum is “pending,” the commission determined.
But the commission in its decision said Carver should be careful about the “timing, tenor and tone of future newsletters” because they could lead to other complaints because of “perceived prohibited advocacy.”
The commission found former Superintendent Gary Chesley violated the law in a 2011 newsletter where he told parents to “approve this budget and
preserve existing programs for your children.”
Chesley was not fined, but signed an agreement on behalf of the Board of Education to comply with the law.
In 2002, the commission found several school officials violated the rules in newsletters and other budget information they sent before a referendum. Chesley and then-First Selectman Judy Novacek were fined $533, although other school officials named in complaints were not.
The Bethel Action Committee and its supporters have filed several of these complaints as part of the organization’s mission to provide government oversight, McCorkindale said.
“We are advocates to the taxpayer, but we are also watchdogs for policy,” she said. “We are watchdogs to make sure the government follows the rules.”
But Knickerbocker said these complaints discourage officials from communicating with residents. After the commission fined him, he stopped sending mailers on behalf of the town in the latter half of election years.
“The intent of the complaint is to try to put a gag order on certain individuals in government and I don’t think that’s right,” he said.