New Haven Independent

Neves reported as much to two Branford residents who had complained about a video airing on public access television featuring McDowell, a former WFSB reporter turned p.r. agent and occasional on-air “analyst.”

McDowell produced the 30-minute promotional video, called “New England Estates v. the Town of Branford”, for the law firm of Shipman & Goodman. It features Tim Hollister and Jim Bergenn, partners at the firm, talking about the whopping $12.4 million jury they won against the town for taking 77 acres of land on Tabor Drive by eminent domain.

The Duby-ous video has come under intense criticism because McDowell posed as a WFSB political analyst when her own public relations company, Duby McDowell, LLC helped to create the video for Shipman & Goodwin, one of the state’s most prominent firms. Her “co-host” is Tanya Meck, former head of the West Hartford Planning and Zoning Board, and the head of her own public relations company. The scene is purposely set to resemble a television set.

In the aftermath of an Independent report on the video, WFSB’s Nevas informed the two concerned residents in an email this week that “any reference to WFSB are in the process of being removed from the video you mention.” The video aired on Branford’s Channel 18, the public access station and on similar stations in surrounding towns.

Neves did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking further comment. Nor did Hollister.

Neves told RTM member Pam Fowler, who had written a highly critical letter, that “we all recognize that our call letters are best left off the video.”

She explained that the station invites outside analysts on its own programs, especially during election years; the station explains to viewers that the analysts hold other jobs. “We do use Ms. McDowell for political analysis, pointing out that she owns a marketing firm in Hartford.”

The television video starring Bergenn and Hollister did not begin on public television. It began on a special website the law firm put up last October, about six weeks after the trial ended. (The town has yet to pay the firm; bills are probably beyond the $1.5 million mark.)

Since they won, why the need for the state-of-the-art website? Hollister acknowledged in an interview that the First Selectman’s race last November, a race that involved three candidates, played a key role in Shipman and Goodwin’s decision to set up a website devoted to Tabor land trial record.

He said the firm’s decision came about when the Tabor case “became a public issue in the campaign for First Selectman. We thought that there was a public need for just the public record information.”

And why was the attorney for the developer concerned about the first selectman’s race?

“Well,” he said, “because there were things that were said about the trial ….” He did not finish his sentence, but he implied, as has Bergenn, that the website was necessary to counter what in their view was misinformation. “We thought that the public record information would be a useful, additional source.”

Hollister said that the website wasn’t unveiled until after the election was over. Not true. The law firm launched its advertising campaign to direct Branford residents to the website prior to the Nov. 6 election. First the law firm took out an ad in the New Haven Register on Oct. 23, about two weeks before the election. The same ad subsequently ran in the Branford weeklies, the Sound and the Branford Review. The quarter-page Register ad (click here ) says: Did the Town of Branford Violate the U.S. Constitution when it seized 77-acres on Tabor Road? Read the facts of yourself—the trial record is now available on line.”

Then the ad gives the site and tells the reader that the site was prepared and paid for by New England Estates, LLC and its attorneys.

“Make your own decision—and talk to your elected officials,” the ad declares. At the time, the town’s elected officials, First Selectman Cheryl Morris and Second Selectman Dick Sullivan. were running as independents against Republican John Opie, and Democrat “Unk” DaRos. DaRos, who was instrumental in the decision to seize the Tabor property by eminent domain in 2003, won the race by a large margin.

It isn’t every law firm in Connecticut that sticks its head into a local election, suggesting residents talk to their elected officials, especially since Morris’s comments leaned toward the developer’s position. Has Shipman & Goodwin crossed the line by trying to influence an election?

DaRos would have been the last candidate Hollister and Bergenn wanted to deal with. That was made clear at the trial. And Opie might have been more conciliatory if, as many believe, NEE sought to settle the case rather than face an appeal.

Bergenn says on the video: “I kinda expected in this recent election that a lot of the facts would come forward. And they still haven’t…. There are bright people in Branford. …This is a very unusual part of this case; that you can actually see the case and get involved or not.”

Hollister said creating the website was a matter of convenience. “We were getting a lot of requests, from a lot of different sources for the public record information. The complaint, the jury instructions, copy exhibits. OK, we said, let’s make it all available, we’ll put it on a website and anybody can access it. We went through what our ethical obligations are and we said public record information only and we decided it should be there.”

He is talking now about the public record on the website. However, the video was produced at a Connecticut Public Television station, where the law firm paid the cameraman and hired the set, Hollister said. It went up after the trial and after the Branford election. As such the video is not part of the Tabor public court record that encompasses what Hollister said are the firm’s ethical obligations.

What are an attorney’s ethical obligations? The content of the video raises troubling questions about the actions of Hollister and Bergenn who give unsolicited legal advice and openly rebuke and belittle former town officials and former town counsel Penny Bellamy, the legal point person on Tabor in 2003. They boldly instruct the town to get moving fast because the statute of limitations is running on any lawsuit the town could bring, presumably against Wiggin & Dana, her former employer.

“There is no advantage to waiting,” Bergenn sternly advises. Right, says Hollister. “An appeal is going to take at least a year, possibly longer than that. There is no reason for them to wait.”

As for the town’s appeal, Bergenn dismisses it as pie in the sky. In his view, “no appellate court is going to believe things that the jury and the judge and everybody who is looking at objective evidence is saying; that is just not what is going on here. So it is not a pretty picture.”

Bergenn observes that the town has options. Number 1, he observes is that “… this is very valuable space. They could go put it out for development, reap millions of dollars, increase their tax base, easily pay off their liability.” But this is said in a wishful voice because the town owns the land, which borders on the town dump.And DaRos has plans for it.

Notice that Bergenn doesn’t mention, NEE, his client, as the potential developer. Perhaps he is thinking about another old Shipman & Goodwin client, Avalon Bay Communities, one of the nation’s largest developers. In the last decade Hollister has represented them in similar strident eminent domain cases involving other Connecticut towns.

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