New Haven Independent

The evening began when Cheryl gasped upon finding that James Bruno was nowhere in sight. “Oh,” she said, “our Moderator isn’t here.” Without giving any explanation for his absence she assumed his spot, smiling as the cameras began to roll. She welcomed folks to the RTM meeting and she conducted the pledge of allegiance. Then Rep. Lisa Avitable, a loyal Morrisonian did what she has done in the past when Bruno was absent. She nominated John Smith, the RTM majority leader, to serve as acting moderator. That effort went belly up because other RTM members were better versed than Cheryl in the intricacies of Robert’s Rules of Order. Before long Rep Anthony Giardiello, the group’s parliamentarian, was in the moderator’s seat.

Few in the room knew this was Cheryl’s special day. Only hours earlier, at 3:20 p.m. she had formally finished filing her petitions. They contain what appear to be ample signatures of qualified voters to enable her to be placed on the ballot as an at-large candidate for First Selectman in the November 6 election. Last time around, she was endorsed by the Democratic Party. Richard Sullivan is running with her as Second Selectman and their official party name is MorrisSullivan (all one word) For Branford. The absent Bruno was on their ticket as a Board of Education candidate. (He had failed to win nomination to the RTM from his own district.) Cheryl’s campaign was now officially underway and she was letting everyone know it.

At every opportunity during the 90-minute meeting she went before the camera, playing a variety of roles. Her debut as media critic began with a correction that elicited gasps. The correction had to do with a quote that appeared in a front-page story of the weekly Branford Review, published on the day of the RTM meeting under what appears to be a dubious headline: “Morris on the record.” It was her quote.

There was a problem, she declared. The article said that DaRos had been arrested in connection with a controversial Islander East pipeline event some years back. Morris wanted everyone in television land to know that was an error. He had not been arrested. Now she is the one quoted in the newspaper as saying DaRos was arrested. She did not say how she came to make this mistake. She implied that the reporter had made the error, when the reporter, believing the town’s top official would be accurate, thought he was quoting her correctly. Apparently the editors let it go by. And now she was announcing the newspaper’s error on a television cable network.

DaRos, who was seated in the audience, could not believe what he was hearing. He smiled and rolled his eyes. Few had a clue as to what she was talking about, including DaRos. Most don’t get the newspaper until the next day. Perhaps Mrs. Morris wanted to leave a lingering doubt about whether DaRos had been arrested, actions not inconsistent with an administration that dreamed up Granite-gate.

Her agenda over the span of the evening including a lecture to the RTM on understanding their powers, pointing out that she, not the RTM, decides who gets town jobs. This was a reference to her hiring John Smith to a top town job at $58,000 a year, plus car. (Her RTM lackeys tried to get the Smith issue tabled before an RTM committee, meaning it disappears. But that was overridden.) Moreover, she announced she was entitled to her own hires because she claimed DaRos and Opie—her predecessors and opponents in the upcoming race— had done the same thing. She recited the records of two unnamed employees and it was, of course, impossible to compare their hires to hers.

The Tabor trial and her response to it provided some of the most dramatic moments of the evening. Morris strongly defended her most recent press release on Tabor against harsh criticism from a number of RTM members who asserted her position is detrimental to the town’s interests.

The release could have been written by a public relations firm working for the developers, one said. Among other things, it claims DaRos and Opie hid the facts from taxpayers by not telling the public what the real impact of a condemnation action might be. She also called DaRos inept.

The second Tabor trial is now underway in Waterbury Superior Court before the same trial judge who last month ordered the town to pay the owners $4.6 million for the land. The town seized the 77-acre parcel in late 2003 citing land contamination concerns from the nearby town dump.

Mrs. Morris issued her second controversial press release just before the second trial got underway.

Rep. Sandra Reiners, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, told the RTM she was shocked to read it and wanted the RTM to know that she “strongly censured this action taken by the Town’s First Selectwoman.”

Reiners chooses her words carefully. She meant what she said when she used the word “censure.” She pointed out that Morris has taken “the side of those very parties suing the Town of Branford,” showing “a callous disregard for the welfare of the Town. She has done the town a grave disservice. It is aimed at her political opponents but wreaks enormous damage to us all along the way.”

She observed that after lengthy hearings on Tabor this spring “we took extreme precautions to ensure that statements made during those hearings would not impair our position during the ensuing litigation.” She observed the RTM itself had passed a resolution last month to “affirm the importance of not publicly making statements about Tabor that could in any way undermine the Town’s defense at trial.”

Morris responded before the television camera, a newspaper article from the New Haven Register in her hand. Behind it were her talking points. She defended her right to issue the press release, a large portion of which wound up in the Register article under a headline
entitled: “DaRos, Opie slammed on Tabor issue.” Morris told the RTM: “I don’t think there is anything in this article that is not factual.”

Mrs. Morris has had trouble distinguishing between fact and opinion. She used the same “factual” rationalization in her first press release as she did in her second. Republican RTM member Ron DeFord has mentioned this problem in the past and tried explaining the difference between fact and opinion once again. But she doesn’t seem to get it.

Mrs. Morris made it perfectly clear that she was not responsible for Tabor and she didn’t want to be blamed for its outcome. ” I did not take the property by eminent domain. I was handed this case….”

Reiners attempted to explain to her the basics of overlapping governance, from one administration to the next, a concept that has eluded Mrs. Morris who seems not to understand, even now, how government works. Each administration inherits issues from the prior one, Reiners pointed out.

“The Board of Selectman, the RTM, the Board of Finance affirmed the idea to take the Tabor land,” over the last four years. “The town is united in that. It is not against a previous administration or this administration. We are all interested in defending the town. And that is why so many people have been upset by your words. It seems to put you on the opposite side of us,” she said.

Kurt Schwanfelder, the minority Republican RTM leader, went beyond the press release to the issue of an appeal in Tabor. He wanted to know why the town had not yet appealed the judge’s decision ordering the town to pay the Tabor owners $4.6 million. A stay pending an appeal might have kept the second trial from getting underway. Lawyers have told the Eagle they have 20 days, until August 23rd, to file.

“Have you discussed an appeal with the town’s Tabor attorneys,” Schwanfelder asked. “I am not answering your question,” she told the Minority leader.

As the first Selectwoman, Mrs. Morris is the client in the case. “You should have jumped on this appeal right away,” Schwanfelder declared. Morris replied “there is ample time to do so.”

Republican Representative John Prete asked whether an earlier RTM resolution—one actually directed at Morris and the RTM —- could be made binding in order to stop the First Selectwoman from speaking about it. There was applause from the few in the audience.

Finally, Morris said she would take into account what the lawyers have to say before she makes a decision on whether to appeal. The other side, New England Estates, may also appeal. But whether an appeal will stop the trial is unclear.

It was now 9:10 p.m. and the big ticket issue still simmering on the RTM agenda was John Smith and Morris’s decision to appoint him to a department head overseeing the town’s buildings.

She went at this issue two ways. First she attacked the RTM, the people’s body, saying they were not authorized to review the Smith hiring.

From Morris’s point of view, the RTM “does not understand its role, does not understand C-2, section two of the Town Charter. You do not know what your powers are,” she told them, picking up the large grey book that contains the Town Charter and Code and reading the relevant section to the RTM. She did this for five minutes straight, using her most professorial voice. Her point here was that she was in charge; she did the hiring and firing, not the RTM.

Not so fast, said Rep. Peter Black, an attorney who knows well the judicial decisions that apply to town meetings. He pointed out again and he has made this argument over many months—that a recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision held that the powers to hire and fire are part of the Town Meeting. “The powers are not as separate as Morris would have you believe,” he said, referring to the 2006 decision: “Bruce Morris v. Robert Congdon,” no relation to Mrs.Morris’s husband, Bruce.

He smiled at Shelley Marcus, town attorney #2 with whom he has had this discussion in public in the past. “It’s not applicable,” was all Ms. Marcus could say of the recent decision upheld by the state’s highest court, one that many believe is on point.

Mrs. Morris now attacked her predecessors—opponents DaRos and Opie, when they were in office. Reading at break-neck speed from a typewritten script, she outlined how each former official handled an appointment he made. But afterward neither Opie nor DaRos could figure out who she was talking about or if what she said was relevant to her decision to hire a top RTM official and member of her inner circle to a Town Hall job.

At one point Opie went over to DaRos and they conferred. They were discussing whether to answer Morris when the meeting opened for public discussion. They decided against it.

###