New Haven Independent

“Marcus was trying desperately to sway us on the charter revision,” Schwanfelder said last week. ‘You are aware that we need 20 votes on this,’ he said. “I looked at him and said, I was born last night, but not in the dark. It was his last ditch effort to sway me to the dark side. It didn’t work.”
While Marcus lobbied, the democratic bloc of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) adjourned to a back room. Their charter revision commission plan was in deep trouble. What they needed was a two-thirds majority of the 30 member board. And they didn’t have the votes. They were four short.
The Republicans stood firm. And why wouldn’t they? Come to think of it, why would either side of the RTM approve a charter revision commission designed to put the RTM out of business?
Cheryl Morris, the town’s first selectwoman, Dick Sullivan, the town’s second selectman and Mr. Marcus want to eliminate the 30 member RTM and replace it with a smaller more malleable legislative body, a council. They also want to explore replacing the Board of Selectmen and RTM with a Mayor-Council form of government.
“They want to have a nine member paid aldermanic council and install their cronies on it. That’s what this is all about. Power, control, and payouts. It’s actually a very detrimental thing,” Schwanfelder said in an interview. Mrs. Morris appointed Marcus, a strong campaign contributor and close family friend, as town counsel the day she was sworn in.
John Smith, the democratic RTM leader, says the reason to examine a new form of government is that Branford has undergone “tremendous growth” since the charter was last amended in 1991. We are not sure what growth Mr. Smith refers to. He didn’t say. But if population is what he had in mind, we point out that according to the U.S. Census Report, Branford’s population in 1990 was 27,603 and in 2005 was 29,946, a total of an 8.49 percent increase over a 15 year period.
A new charter commission would also change (read that eliminate) the “duties and scope” of the 6 member Board of Finance, the town’s oversight financial authority. The Board oversees all town investment funds and keeps control over the books and records. Click here to learn more. The Morris administration wants to allow certain funds to be transferred within departments without Board of Finance approval, but with approval by the Mayor or First Selectmen and the appointment of a new Director of Finance.
What’s more, Smith told the RTM that speed was vital. The Morris-Sullivan-Marcus team wants to gather information and hold public hearings AND submit a draft report by Aug. 15, three months from now. That way, the Branford voters could vote on the issue in the November, 2006 gubernatorial election.
Richard Greenalch, Jr. another Republican RTM member, asked: “We have had 45 years of the same government….Why does this new administration want this all of sudden?”
Mrs. Morris sat silently with Mr. Sullivan at a table in the spectator section. She chewed gum and kept her eyes downcast.
Another Republican RTM member, Frank Twohill, asked about the make-up of the Commission. Smith said: Six republicans, eight democrats and one unaffiliated. Twohill next wondered if the administration had already budgeted for funds toward the Commission. “$10, 000,” came the answer, for a consultant-mediator.
Ron Deford, another Republican RTM member, said: “they have already got a well conceived idea of what they want to do and how to execute it” he said. “I have no confidence in the current political administration.”
Besides speed, there was another issue: Branford already has a Charter Revision Commission, one set up by John Opie’s administration before he lost the election to Ms. Morris.
On Nov. 22, six days after she was sworn in, Mrs. Morris sent a police officer to the Commission’s meeting to hand deliver her letter, along with a legal opinion from the Marcus Law Firm, demanding the Opie’s commission be disbanded.
Marcus’s legal opinion said the RTM, and not the Board of Selectmen, is the appropriate appointing authority of a charter revision commission in Branford.
But the commission did not disband because it disputed Marcus’s legal opinion. Jonathan Clark, the Commission’s chair, told the RTM that “the opinion of the Marcus law firm was an error, rather egregiously so…simply holding up an opinion doesn’t make it legal. That is not due process. That’s government by fiat.” The current 9-member commission includes a former state senator, two attorneys, the town historian, Schwanfelder and others with years of town service.
Clark said the first charter commission “was created and appointed in accordance with precedent not only in Branford but also in every other town in Connecticut with a Board of Selectmen/ RTM form of government. Town Counsel’s opinion did not address these precedents. ” Nor has Marcus’s view of the law been tested in court. “I would be disappointed if you appointed a second charter revision commission,” he told the RTM. Click here to read Clark’s report to town officials.
When the Commission refused to disband, Morris and Marcus used other tactics: They told the town’s department heads not to cooperate, Clark said. The Marcus law firm refused to work with it. Outside agencies rejected their questions. The Commission’s funding was cut off. “Every where we turned we got blackballed,” said Schwanfelder.
Fast forward. Marcus now finds himself lobbying RTM Republicans for a second charter commission. When the Democrats emerge from the back room, they try a new ploy—extending the Commission’s work from three months to a year. “Our attorney,” said Sandra Reimers of the RTM, referring to Shelley Marcus, Mr. Marcus’s daughter, “told us we needed a time frame.”
But Republicans voted it down anyway. And it is unlikely they will be swayed in the future to help create a commission that may well remove them from office.
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