New Haven Independent

After a nearly four hour long meeting, The Branford Board of Ethics found there was no probable cause to establish that Pam Fowler, a Republican RTM member, had a conflict of interest because she worked for the Branford school system while at the same time served on the RTM’s education committee.

A week before, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) dismissed an elections violation complaint filed by Michael Milici, the former Democratic Town Chairman, against Lonnie Reed, the RTM’s education chair. Reed was called as one of Fowler’s witnesses.

The Board dismissed a complaint brought by John Smith, the Majority leader of the RTM and a loyal Cheryl Morris-Ed Marcus follower, after listening to sworn testimony and asking questions of seven witnesses. Fowler is a non-certified, non-union technical assistant at the John B. Sliney School.

The three voting members of the Ethics Board, Jeff Clark, the new Chairman, Alice Lambert and Gary Morrison all said this issue belonged before the RTM. A fourth member, Chris Edmonds, an attorney,announced he had done legal work for Smith and Fowler asked him not to participate.

Although he voted to dismiss, Clark was clearly troubled. “What if all seven members of the education committee worked for the Board of Ed,” he asked, trying to make his point. He told the committee that for him, personally, he would not have stayed on the education committee.

Elected to the RTM for the first time in 2005, Fowler called the Smith pursuit an attempt “to use a political hammer” to embarrass and intimidate her. She said everyone knew she worked for the school system and had no problem with it.

Fowler has been a thorn in the side of the Cheryl Morris-Ed Marcus Administration. She told the Eagle she believes she became a target after she successfully obtained the Marcus Law Firm’s monthly legal bills via a Freedom of Information request. She also filed a I complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission against the First Selectwoman for issuing a misleading public meeting notice regarding a new lease for the Stony Creek Quarry. (.A hearing was held but the Commission has not yet ruled)

The Ethics Board hearing and the deliberations were conducted in public at Fowler’s request.

Smith called James Bruno, the RTM Moderator, who testified he is in charge of appointing RTM members to committees. He said he did not know Fowler worked at the school. But Kurt Schwanfelder, the Republican Minority Leader, told the Board that when he recommended Fowler he told Bruno that Fowler worked for the town. Bruno also conceded that Fowler told him where she worked, but given the fancy titles and acronyms schools use these days, he just didn’t realize Fowler was actually on the payroll.

The idea that Fowler might be able to influence her salary or the education budget, was absurd, Schwanfelder said afterward. “State statutes give the Board of Education full automony over their budget. We vote them a block of money and that is pretty much it,” he said. “The RTM does not have line item control.”

The Fowler and Reed complaints are similar in that there were long time gaps between the event triggering the complaint and the actual filing of the complaint. In Reed’s case, Milici acted 14 months after she was elected to the RTM.

And Smith told the audience of about a dozen people that he first learned of Fowler’s school employment in April, 06. Nonetheless, he waited until the December RTM meeting— eight months later —to tell Bruno he wanted to send the Fowler case to the Board of Ethics. It was during this time period that Fowler took on the administration.

Robin Sandler, former town counsel under Republican John Opie and Fowler’s attorney, asked Fowler if her employment was published during the election campaign and she said yes, in the local newspapers. But Smith said he doesn’t read newspaper articles about political opponents, a statement that seems remarkably naive for such a politically active fellow.

Besides saying he had no early knowledge of Fowler’s employment, Smith, a long-time member of the RTM, seems to have been in the dark about a legal opinion requested in May 2005 by the former RTM Moderator Raymond Dunbar, Jr. Dunbar asked Sandler as Town Counsel to provide a legal opinion on conflicts of interest issues.

Sandler wrote a legal opinion that has not been superceded. It says in part: “Given the strong public policy in favor of employee participation in town political activities, including holding elective office, and given the definition of financial interests which exclude interests which are common with other citizens, it is my legal opinion that the Code of Ethics does not explicitly exclude Town employees from voting on budgets which may include their salary.” Perhaps Smith should have consulted Marcus, the town counsel, about conflict-of-interest legal opinions because this one provides a road map on how town law is to be interpreted in conflict of interest cases.

The case took one curious turn when Smith gave his opening statement. Smith had first given Bruno and then the Board of Ethics an undated complaint against Fowler. It had not been sworn to and as a result the Board dismissed it. He refiled it in March. Yet he now argued his complaint was not specifically aimed at Fowler herself. Rather, he said, it was aimed at a larger, more crucial issue, the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Alice Lambert, a member of the Board, remembered this new twist when deliberations began.

“I don’t think we need to go further,” she said as the first one to voice an opinion at the conclusion of the hearing. “In my opinion, there is no issue. It is not spelled out in the code what constitutes a violation of the appearance of a conflict.” She went on: “I don’t feel there is a case. I’m troubled by ‘the appearance’ part. It appears the RTM should take it up.”

Gary Morrison observed that bringing the case “before this board is a last resort. Is there a way to bring it back to the RTM?”

Clark had asked Smith why the RTM simply didn’t deal with the issue. Smith replied that given the political climate at the RTM he didn’t think it was a good idea. The sub-text here is that if the RTM were asked to vote on removing Fowler from the education committee, the Morris-Marcus- Smith RTM Democrats might not get the necessary 2/3 vote.

In his sworn affidavit, Smith said that to the best of his knowledge and belief Reed “requested that Ms. Fowler voluntarily resign form the education committee and she refused to do so.”

But Reed sent a letter to Chairman Clark to correct this inaccuracy, she testified. RTM member Gail Chapman—Carbone, who witnessed the Smith-Reed exchange in the Democratic caucus, said she concurred with Reed’s explanation, not Smith’s. “Lonnie was not going to ask her (Fowler) to resign,” she said. Reed said that Fowler had a letter from Sandler that “suggested that as a non-certified teacher’s aide, she had the right to serve on the Education committee.”

After it was over, a relieved and smiling Fowler said in an interview that after the December RTM meeting Bruno told her he could simply have moved her off the education committee. “Then why didn’t you?” she asked. He had no answer, she said.

Lonnie Reed’s take: “It’s what people who think they have power do—-they hijack the process.”
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