Thomas MacMillan File Photo
Alderman Michael Smart.
Aldermen have subpoenaed recalcitrant mayoral appointees to a hearing to reveal whether New Haven taxpayers have been denied a legal opportunity to question their bills.
Meanwhile, the subpoenas themselves sparked a spat with City Hall.
Wooster Square Alderman Michael Smart had the subpoenas sent this week to Board of Assessment Appeals members Jacqueline Harris and Michael Newton. The subpoenas order them to appear at a Sept. 14 hearing of the aldermanic Tax Abatement Committee, which Smart chairs.
Smart had ordered them, without subpoenas, to appear at previous hearings dealing with an outpouring of public outrage this year over alleged problems with the city’s tax office and appeal board.
Harris and Newton, mayoral appointees, failed to show.
“They’ve been subpoenaed. We expect them to be there. They’ve been served,” Smart said Friday. “They need to show up. We’re not going to deal with any obstructions. We need to stop playing games here.”
The appeals board has failed to hold meetings in public or produce minutes of meetings or decisions, as required by law. This year, artists and small business people have filed complaints after receiving huge spikes in their tax bills, including across-the-board $5,000 assessments on personal property. Those hikes were levied by the tax assessor based not on inspections, but alleged industry “standards.” Complaining taxpayers reported sometimes bizarre encounters with the appeals board, and in some cases said they were told their appeals were granted, only to receive subsequent letters from the tax office saying the opposite. In one case, the owner of a for-profit downtown coffee shop appealed being charged for failing to submit paperwork required of not-for-profit organizations — and was denied. (Click here to read Betsy Yagla’s New Haven Advocate story first reporting the appeals board shenanigans.)
Smart said he plans to explore the question on Sept. 14 of whether the appeals board is “an independent body.”
Harris and Newton couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.
Mayor John DeStefano last month acknowledged problems with how the appeals board has functioned. He promised more support from City Hall staff.
Subpoena Proves Controversial
It took some haggling to get the subpoenas issued.
Victor Bolden.
Smart originally asked city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden to send them out.
“I said, ‘Let me do this: Because Jacqueline Harris had been talking to a lawyer in our office about other matters, for an abundance of caution, let’s have outside counsel do that. Let me know what you want to do,’” Bolden recalled telling Smart.
That’s fine, Smart responded: attorney Michael Jefferson agreed to prepare the subpoenas for the aldermen. And he agreed to do it for free.
“I said, ‘Fine,’” Bolden recalled. He said he added that his office needed to draw up a contract for Jefferson. Even though Jefferson was working pro bono, the city Code of Ordinances (section 2 – 162) still requires that the aldermen approve a contract with him, and the charter (Article V, Section 12, subsections c and d) still requires that the mayor sign it, Bolden said.
Bolden said he was surprised to get a call while attending a different aldermanic hearing this past Monday night, informing him that the subpoenas had gone out. He said he contacted Jefferson to tell him, “You don’t have a contract yet. Anything you’re doing in the interim can’t be considered something you’re doing on behalf of the city of New Haven.”
Click here to read a Wednesday email from Bolden to Jefferson, in which he says Jefferson cannot do what he did and seeks to refute charges that his office was slow to act.
Jefferson responded that he had provided Bolden with all the documentation he needed, and that Bolden “dragged his feet” in drawing up the contract. The date of the hearing was approaching. Jefferson also questioned whether Bolden’s office has a conflict of interest because of its counseling the subpoena targets, who are mayoral appointees.
Michael Jefferson.
“They asked me to accommodate them by providing proof of professional liability insurance, by drafting a proposed agreement, which I did,” Jefferson said. “That was that. Then [Bolden] sent out an email to the aldermanic leadership saying, ‘Look, we’re ready to go on this. We’re entering into a contractual agreement.’ We never heard back from him. We just sat around waiting.
“Once he sent out an email to the aldermanic leadership and he said, ‘We’re going to enter into this agreement with Mike Jefferson; get back to me if you have any problem with it.’ we waited a few days. Then I sent out the subpoenas.”
“What do they have to hide?” Jefferson asked. “Why weren’t these people there the first time? Why is he serving as an obstructionist this time?”
Bolden denied trying to stall or prevent the subpoenas from being issued.
The question of whether the subpoenas are valid has become moot, because Harris and Newton are planning to attend the hearing, Bolden added “The matter is really done for my purposes. Ms. Harris and Mr. Newton have agreed to appear voluntarily. Everything’s fine.”
“It’s not moot,” Jefferson responded. “They don’t know if [Harris and Newton are] going to show up. It’s not the first time they were requested to appear. They’ve already been asked to come to a hearing.”
Tax Appeals Chairman Michael Smart doesn't need Victor Bolden's, Mayor John DeStefano's, or anyone else's permission to order and serve subpoenas, the City Charter specifically gives him and any other Chairman the authority to do so. Bolden is dead wrong to try to slow down this process, and should step away.
City Charter Sec. 44. Authority of certain boards, committees, officers to compel attendance and testimony of witnesses.
The presiding officer of the board of aldermen, of the several committees of said board, and of the several boards of commissioners, and the director of public works, shall respectively have power to compel the attendance and testimony of witnesses before their respective boards, committees and departments over which they preside, by the issue of subpoenas and the administration of oaths in the manner and according to the rules governing the same in courts of justice; and when it shall be necessary to secure the attendance or testimony of witnesses before said boards, committees, departments or director of public works, such presiding officers and such director of public works, shall have the right to apply to the superior court for an order compelling any witness so summoned before them to testify; which courts shall have the power to issue subpoenas and to enforce the presence and testimony of all witnesses summoned in the same way and to the same extent as they now have power to enforce and compel the presence and testimony of witnesses in each of said courts. Failure of the chief executive or any other employee of any department, board, office or agency of the city to appear following the issuance of a subpoena therefore by the presiding officer of the board of aldermen or of one of the committees of said board, shall, upon vote of the board of aldermen, be grounds for removal from office pursuant to Article XXXII. In the event of such a vote, a copy thereof shall be forwarded to the personnel director for inclusion in such employee's permanent personnel file and to the mayor.