The top of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) was upbeat and inspiring. There was a tribute to the Branford American Legion baseball team, which had a rousing season, finishing seventh in the nation. And Etta Jane Hanlon, a Branford High sophomore, won the support of the RTM for her idea to recycle tons of holiday paper and boxes in special bags.
Dan McGowan, the town’s solid waste supervisor, loved Etta’s idea, which came about after she saw that Christmas paper and boxes didn’t get recycled at her home because there was no bin big enough. Greater recycling efforts means more recycling funds return to the town. McGowan said he thought Branford might be the first town in the state to adopt this idea.
Marcia Chambers Photo
Before a packed house at Fire Headquarters on Wednesday night, Etta asked McGowan as she wound up her presentation if he thought her idea were possible? Yes, he said. “We are just looking for support here,” she added. Her father, RTM member Doug Hanlon, listened intently as his daughter spoke.
Rep. Mary Davis proposed the RTM “commend and recommend” the idea. There was unanimous approval and applause.
And then the RTM got down to the business of the evening.
NEW REC CONTRACT
Over the next two hours it approved a tentative four-year contract between the town and the Parks and Recreation and Custodians Union that was ratified by the union in August. Fire, Public Works and Town Hall employee union contracts, have also been finalized and are awaiting ratification.
These contracts will come before the new RTM after it is elected in November. The recreation contract will presumably set the stage for the other contracts, RTM members noted.
There was no wage increase in the Recreation and Custodians contract for 2012, but effective July 1 these workers will receive a 2.75 percent increase for 2013, a 2.8 percent increase for 2014 and a 2.9 percent increase for 2015.
Under this new contract, a new health plan giving employees new choices will be instituted, program town negotiators said “achieved the goals” of a new health benefits program that controls for costs for both employees and the Town. The town said the wage schedule was “reasonable” and allows the town to “continue to retain and attract quality employees.”
ASSESSORS ORDINANCE
Finally the RTM dealt with an issue that had taken nearly two years to resolve.
After a long, winding and frustrating journey, the RTM finally complied with state law and accepted a newly written assessor’s ordinance that accepts state law and amends previous legislation regarding the Board of Assessors. Had it not the town would continue to be in violation of state law.
The new ordinance also removes political term limits for assessors and sets standards for their removal from office.
Back in October 2010 the state legislature changed the selection process for town and city assessors. In virtually all towns and cities, the board of assessors had been elected by voters every two years, even if it its members were not certified as assessors. In reality, the board had been replaced over time by full-time accredited assessors. In Branford’s case, virtually all of the elected assessors were not accredited and were not permitted to sign the town’s grand list.
So it seems there would be little or no difficulty in following the new law, especially since the two member board, Democrat Joseph V. Fazzino, Jr., and Republican William R. Donaruma, were not accredited assessors. The only accredited assessor and member of the board was Assessor Barbara Neal, who is employed by the town and is not an elected official.
HISTORY OF ORDINANCE
The new assessor’s statute went into effect on Oct 1, 2010. For some reason, still not fully explained, Fazzino and Donaruma were placed on the 2011 ballot when they shouldn’t have been. So voters voted for them not realizing they could not serve.
Former Republican First Selectman John Opie opposed changing the Board of Assessors from the outset and said so and at various meetings. During his term in office he made efforts to revitalize the board. The Republican members on the current R& O Committee backed his vision to retain it. They proposed various alternatives, but they were told by town counsel they ran contrary to the new law.
When the RTM’s Rules & Ordinance Committee held its first meeting in December 2011, the assessor’s item, which included an end to two to four year term limits for the town assessor, was on the call. What some assessors in other parts of the state were finding was that if they didn’t comply with unreasonable requests to reduce the taxes of friends and family of their Mayor or First Selectman, they would be retaliated against and not be reappointed.
Marcia Chambers Photo
Rep. Adam Hansen, a Democrat from the 4th district (pictured), took over the job of handling the problematic ordinance after Rep.Sandler and Rep Mary Davis each tried but failed to arrive at a resolution. Hansen was the chair of the RTM’s inquiry into possible legislation for new gun shops in town.
In an interview with the Eagle after the vote this week, Hansen said the R& O first began its evaluation of the assessor’s statute as well as the Board of Assessment Appeals statute about two years ago.
“It was the first agenda item on our call in December 2011. It went from hand to hand. Rep. Mary (Davis) worked on it for a while, Robin (Sandler) worked on it for a while. Finally I said I would take it and see if we could resolve it. So I did the research and brought in information. ”
Hansen invited John Chaponis, the assessor of Colchester and Andover and a past president of the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers, to an R & O meeting. Chaponis was the architect of the new legislation. Hansen asked him to explain the new law. Chaponis told the committee the reasons behind the changes. He explained that a mayor or his emissary may approach the assessor to try to get taxes down for a family member or friend.”
If the assessor doesn’t comply, he or she may be threatened with losing their job. This happened to four qualified and certified assessors in the state. He explained why it necessary that assessors be removed for “good cause” or just cause and not have to rely on re-appointments.
Over the last two years, three major arguments emerged in the committee’s effort to adopt the new ordinance. Who should appoint the assessor? Traditionally this was left up to the Board of Selectman, but the RTM, the legislative body, was actually considered. That failed. Then the Republican side of the aisle tried a different maneuver. Why not have advisers to assessors as opposed to a board? That would present a problem, Clendenen noted. Just when one issue was cleared up, another one developed. It never stopped, even as the end approached on Wednesday night, Hansen observed.
FINALLY, A VOTE
The R & O Committee had ongoing legal help from Town Counsel William H. Clendenen, Jr., who provided language and law in the many documents he sent to the committee beginning in March 26, 2012 and ending last week. It became clear from his letters that what he wrote one month was for one reason or another rejected the following month, primarily by the Republican lawyers on the R&O committee.
The RTM finally approved the new ordinance but not before various monkey wrenches were thrown out to prevent it. Had the Democrats decided to use their 4-3 majority on the committee, they could have approved it early on. But they wanted political consensus, Hansen said.
Robin Sandler, who served as town counsel under former First Selectman Opie, was the lone vote against it.
At a recent R & O meeting Sandler said he strongly believed in maintaining the three-person board that included two residents of the town. He acknowledged that Branford was one of only two towns in the state that had kept the Board of Assessors. “Branford should always be different,” he observed. He announced he would vote against the new ordinance on the floor of the RTM and he did.
At the RTM meeting Wednesday, Sandler noted that the Board of Assessors “plays and an important role,” in part because its meetings are public.”
He had allies on his side of the aisle for a long time, beginning with Richard Greenalch, Jr. (pictured), also an attorney who has extensive knowledge of state law. Greenalch admitted at one meeting that he had reluctantly changed his mind on trying to keep some version of the Board of Assessors, citing the need for the town to comply with state statute.
At the R & O meeting held a week before the RTM meeting, Greenalch threw a curve ball, attempting to restore a two year term for a person serving on the Board of Assessment Appeals, the group that hears property tax appeals. Once again Hansen emailed Clendenen.
So Clendenen sent another letter, this one dated Sept. 6. In it Clendenen reiterated his July 9 letter that says “there is no statutory authority that allows the Town to appoint additional members for terms lasting longer than an assessment year…” He asked that Hansen modify the draft to include a one-year term “as originally suggested.”
There came a point on the floor where some RTM members, including acting R & O chair Maggie Bruno, said they were confused by all the changes. In the end, Greenalch said that Clendenen was entitled to his legal interpretation and he would not oppose it. He stood to restate the wording regarding one year, as opposed to two.
But there was still squabbling over words and it appeared for a moment that the ordinance might collapse. Town Clerk Marianne Kelly reminded the RTM that the Board of Assessors statute was essentially revoked in 2010.
Democratic Majority Leader David Baker called for a short recess so that Hansen and Greenalch might work on the wording. Sandler balked at that. The recess was called anyway.
At 9:45 p.m., the RTM was called back into session. Hansen read the entire revised two page ordinance, where a one year term was substituted for a two year term in the relevant section.
Finally Chris Sullivan, the RTM moderator, called for a vote.
John Leonard, a newly installed Republican RTM member and an attorney, abstained because he is a member of the Board of Assessment Appeals, which, he said, runs “for one more week.”
Sandler noted the nearly two years it had taken to reach this point. Then he voted against it as he promised he would. The remainder of the RTM voted to accept the new ordinance.
Looking back, Rep. Hansen said it had been a long, long process, one that began when he arrived as a freshman RTM member in 2011.
He described the experience as “tedious and frustrating.” But in the end, he said, “I think we wrote a good ordinance that the R and O can be proud of. It is a positive ordinance,” he said.
The vote to finally bring the town into compliance with state law came at 9:52 p.m. There was some urgency to the vote because the current RTM term ends with its October meeting. No vote this month and possibly another round of issues arising next month would mean the assessor’s issue would have to start all over again.
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