New Haven Independent

Morris called a special meeting of the three-member Board of Selectman Wednesday for the sole purpose of making her final political appointments. But the outgoing Selectwoman, who suffered a humiliating defeat at the polls, was stopped in her tracks by none other than Sullivan, her running mate and until this evening her loyal ally.

He had decided that this last obvious patronage appointment would be so devastating that even he, her partner in prior political acts, couldn’t stomach it so he joined with Third Selectman John Opie to make a final 2-1 vote against Morris’s appointment. Shelley Marcus, who attended the meeting, her last as town attorney #2, looked crushed.

To place Marcus on the Commission, Morris wanted to toss Cornelius (Neil) Crowley, a long-term, dedicated member who had no desire to leave. As is her style, Morris did not consult with the EDC’s chair or Crowley for that matter. From her perspective, she was getting rid of old blood, as she put it, and replacing it with new blood. We will let that statement sink in.

Morris, who did not fully understand until the final moments of the meeting that Sullivan had abandoned her, voted with Opie’s motion to eliminate all new appointments from the public agenda. Once Sullivan made the very public break, Morris finally realized what had happened. She looked bewildered.

“Cheryl. You have been in office for two years. You have done a lot of things. And a lot of controversy has come your way,” Sullivan said. “I hate to see us go out in controversy,” he said, adding it was not good for the town. “I hate to see us leave on this note. I feel terrible.”

Morris’s power play centered on three new appointees: Marcus, Sullivan himself and John Young who was to be appointed to the Shellfish Commission. The First Selectwoman should have suspected something was awry when at the outset of the meeting Sullivan withdrew his own name from appointment to the East Shore Health Department Regional Board.

“On reflection,” he said, he did not think the current Board of Selectmen, which goes out of business when Unk DaRos and Fran Walsh take office as First and Second Selectman Nov. 20, should be in the business of making these appointments, including his own. It should be done by the next administration, he said. Opie again becomes the Third Selectman.

Sullivan acted after Ray Figlewski, the Chair of the EDC, had addressed the three-member board. Figlewski said that Morris did not consult him or Crowley himself about removing Crowley from the EDC. Figlewski described Crowley as “a very valuable member of the Commission. I think it is important that the head of the commission and others have some say in who comes up. Maybe if he is not doing the job anymore, then okay. However, Neil is doing his job. He has served the EDC for many years. He has spanned five administrations. He brings professional experience and insight into the Commission’s work. He has done multi-faceted work in the gas utility company. He never misses a meeting and he is a real valuable part of the committee. I value his position.”

It is not Morris’s pattern to consult in advance with Commission or Board chairs when she wants to make a change. She simply does it. Her attitude and actions have upset other chairs as well.

Figlewski said his concern was over the process, not the person Mrs. Morris selected to replace Crowley. Figlewski added that he did not think it was right to make this appointment “at the end of an administration when a new Selectman is coming in. The EDC is for Branford. We want the best for the town. And I have that in Neil.”

Opie said it is terrible for the morale of a board or commission to make a political appointment. “You have done nothing wrong; you have served the town well and all of sudden you are yanked out. These people work hard. It is unfair to them. It is part of their life. I do not see any reason why we should upset that applecart. And certainly at the end of an administration, it is not good.” In the past Morris and Sullivan together made it possible to continue the overt nepotism on the Board of Police Commissioners.

Unk DaRos, the incoming First Selectman, attended the meeting. He will be sworn in by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Nov. 20 at 8:30 a.m. at the Blackstone Library. He said Morris’s actions were simply wrong. DaRos, who served as First Selectman from 1997 to 2003, went through three elections. ” Even when we thought we were going to be re-elected by a big vote, we stopped making appointments (to boards and commissions) at least two months before election day because we felt that was just the proper thing to do.”

But that is not Morris’s style. At one point she said she was empowered to make the Shelley Marcus appointment and she intended to. But then she began to realize that she had lost Sullivan.

She said to him: “You accepted this motion for discussion. Did you second the motion? “Yes,” Sullivan replied. “Now any further discussion on the item?” she asked. Silence. All in favor. “Yes,” said Opie. “Yes,” said Sullivan. Motion carries, she said, her voice dropping. The new appointments section was deleted.

Sullivan had a final word: “Let me say this has nothing to do with any personalities. I just think it is time we move on …without bitterness.” Figlewski had spoken to Sullivan before the meeting. Sullivan might have been concerned because DaRos had asked him to stay on as the chair of the town’s Vision Committee, a key town group set up by Morris to make decisions about the town’s future. Sullivan wanted to keep this post. One of his functions would involve becoming a liaison with the community.

Now Sullivan, who had been asked to stay, was being asked to remove a responsible member of a commission for political purposes. One got the sense it just didn’t sit right with him.

At one point Morris caught Marcus’s gaze. Morris looked both baffled and resigned. She had lost her 2-1 rule, a rule she had come to depend upon. It was over. Shelley Marcus looked downcast. But when she left the room some minutes later she was furious.

But Shelley hasn’t lost everything. The night before she appeared before the Sewer Authority, now called the Water Control Pollution Authority, to recommend that her firm continue its representation after the firm formally steps down as Town Counsel next week.

The “Retention of Legal Services” item was added to the agenda late Friday afternoon. Shelley Marcus told the Board her firm was “privileged to represent the Sewer Authority for the last two years.”

Actually it wasn’t quite two years. Back on February 15, 2006, Leno Torelli, whom Morris and Sullivan had just put on the Authority, nominated Ed Struzinsky, another Morris supporter, to be the new chairman. At the time Republican Peter Berdon was the Authority’s attorney and was highly praised for his work.

Then Torelli nominated Edward Marcus to be counsel for the Sewer Authority, according to the Authority’s minutes. On Tuesday Struzinsky led Shelley to a new Marcus contract. Some of the hourly rates have gone up. Ed Zack, Mrs. Morris’s campaign treasurer, whom she and Sullivan recently reappointed to the Authority, seconded the motion. Not one member of the Authority asked to postpone the action since DaRos’s takes office Tuesday.

As for Morris, it did not escape Opie’s notice that at a similar meeting two years ago, just before Morris began her term, she tried unsuccessfully to remove two current members of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Instead, Opie, then the outgoing First Selectman, kept them on. Morris had not called the P&Z members back then to tell them they were about to get dumped. They did not want to leave. That is what began the turmoil that enveloped her term. And here she was, coming full circle, trying to do it all over again. This time she was stopped from within.
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