Town clerk challenges legality of finance board meetings

MORRIS >> On Dec. 11, First Selectman Barbara Bongiolatti cancelled that night’s Board of Finance meeting, given that she would not be able to attend and elect officers for what was at the time a chairman-less board. The finance board held this meeting anyway and Town Clerk Ann Carr has now submitted a complaint to the state Freedom of Information Office disputing the legality of that and subsequent meetings by the finance board.

Barbara Burch, secretary of the Morris finance board, is the only returning officer on the board. With the former chairman having declined to run again in November, the board was left without an acting chairman and needed to elect one at its next meeting. Bongiolatti, as ex officio, planned to call the meeting to order but was unable to make it that night and cancelled the meeting.

“We’ve gone through the statutes; we’ve gone through our town ordinances,” Burch said. “We have no bylaws on the Board of Finance. We can find nothing where the First Selectman has the authority to cancel a Board of Finance meeting.”

Burch said that she contacted town attorney Chip Roraback, who she said advised her that if they did have a quorum they could hold the meeting.

“Under Robert’s Rules, any member can call the meeting to order and vote for these temporary officers,” she said.

Five of the eight members, two of which are alternates, met that night; all five Republicans. According to the minutes, former BOF chairman John Lilley was in attendance and was consulted about the meeting. The minutes state that Lilley gave his opinion that the First Selectman had no authority to cancel the meeting, and thus the board continued.

Burch was elected as Clerk Pro Term until the election of officers. Two additional meetings were then scheduled: one on Dec. 16 and another Dec. 18, where officers were elected and a schedule for future meetings. Carr, in her FOI complaint, questions the merit of all motions made at the Dec. 11, 16 and 18 meetings, since the latter two were scheduled during what she deems a cancelled and therefore not legal meeting.

“All those motions are in jeopardy because they did not take the time to do correctly,” Carr said. “In retrospect they should actually stop having their meetings until they can re-vote everything they voted on at their Dec. 11 meeting.”

A chain of emails between Carr and Burch is included in her FOI complaint. Carr explains that the meeting has been cancelled by the first selectman. Burch responded to this email stating several times that the meeting would be held.

Larry Sweeney, Democratic Town Committee chair and a BOF member himself emailed selectman Ronald Burch — Barbara Burch’s husband — asking for a written copy of the attorney’s opinion on the matter in case there was a need to defend the decision to go forward with the meeting. Despite the board voting with only Republicans in the room, Sweeney dispelled any notion that party politics were in play.

“This is not a political (issue) since, as we both believe, there is no controversy about the election of officers,” Sweeney said, later going on to mention that he would like to re-notice and re-vote the meeting if the attorney could not supply a letter. “If we cannot obtain the letter we should re notice the meeting for a day or so from today and revote. We can even combine the business of both days with no objections. That way there will be no time lost. I just want to be protected from possible future liability. We all should.”

Sweeney told the Register Citizen on Friday that he did not receive a letter from the attorney. In his emails, he states that “there is no issue so pressing that require actions that may be challenged at a later date. We are dealing with large sums of the taxpayers money and have a duty to act with due caution in all matters.”

The Freedom of Information Office could take weeks or even months to weigh in on the legality of these three meetings, Carr said. In the interim, she said that Bongiolatti plans to meet with Ronald Emanuel, who was elected as chairman at the Dec. 16 meeting.

“The members have made it very clear they answer to no one and the errors just continue to unfold,” Carr wrote in her letter to the state of Connecticut FOI office in Hartford.

Carr also mentioned that members have been taking down or adding agendas to the posting board at town hall that have not been OK’d by her office.

“My major complaint was that there was tampering with the posting board in town hall for the agendas,” she said.

Burch said she is unaware of any tampering.

“I have no clue what they’re talking about,” she said. “Allegations are being made and to be quite frank, I think they’re quite slanderous. Again, I’m shocked.”