STONINGTON — On Wednesday afternoon the Town of Stonington posted a notification on its website for a special meeting of the Board of Finance to be held Thursday night.
“Call to order: Appointment of new BOF member to fill seat vacated by Deborah Norman.”
The meeting, which was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Wequetequock Firehouse in Pawcatuck, was later cancelled just a hours before it was scheduled to begin. Special meetings are not uncommon and within the guidelines of local government, but the timing of this particular meeting sparked speculation that it amounted to a power play between current and newly-elected members of the board.
The meeting was called soon after Deborah Norman, a member of the Board of Finance for the past six years, resigned ahead of being sworn into her new seat on Board of Selectmen on Nov. 18. On Wednesday, Norman stopped into town hall to pick up information on her new seat and to hand in her resignation.
“My goal is to get up and running,” said Norman.
Outgoing Board of Finance Chair Tim O’Brien, who failed to secure a Democratic Town Committee endorsement this year, and is his completing his third term on the board, immediately called a special meeting.
That sparked consternation among members of Stonington’s Democratic Party, who suggested it was an attempt by O’Brien to leverage his last days in office to shape the new board.
“We are concerned that this meeting was called with almost no notice and without any legitimate need for urgency,” said James Kading the DTC chair in a statement after the meeting was called. “A one-day turnaround shuts out qualified residents who may want to be considered and weakens public trust. This is an unnecessary and anti-democratic move by an outgoing chair who should not be making major decisions on the way out.”
Town Clerk Sally Duplice told CT Examiner, the board has up to 60 days to fill vacancies.
The Board of Finance plays a critical role in the town, greenlighting the town budget and setting the town’s mill rate.
“They’re really essential in everything we do,” said outgoing First Selectwoman Danielle Chesebrough. “They have a very large role. And then beyond that we go to them all the time with changes, new projects come up, whether we need money moved around to cover something, or we need additional funding for something else.”
Terms for the seven-member board are four years with a three-term limit, and the positions can be elected or appointed.
The new seat will remain in the hands of a registered Democrat, or an unaffiliated candidate endorsed by the Democrats — but the local party nevertheless complained that the quick notice served to undermine the public trust.
“Calling a meeting with only a day’s notice shuts out qualified residents who may want to be considered for this position and leaves voters without a real opportunity to have their voices heard in the process,” the local Democrats complained in a statement.
The party’s executive committee quickly put forward, Pam Johnstone, a realtor and volunteer for the DTC, as a candidate for the spot.
To date Johnstone is the only Democrat who has applied for the position.
Others wondered what the urgency was to fill the spot.
“What’s the rush?” asked State Rep. Aundré Bumgardner, D-Groton.
The town elected a new first selectman, two selectmen and three new members of the Board of Finance — a significant loss of institutional knowledge, warned Bumgardner.
“The town in of itself will lose … we are talking about decades of service and institutional knowledge within these important boards and commissions,” he told CT Examiner.
Another temporary appointment to fill a vacated position on the Board of Finance was nullified by the town attorney because the vote occurred not at a special meeting, as required, but at a regular meeting of the board.
”This matters because a week later, the same outgoing leadership then tried to rush a second appointment, which would have included a vote from the improper appointment,” said Lyndsey Pyrke-Fairchild, who serves as secretary for the local Democratic Town Committee.
O’Brien is a registered Democrat but ran as a petitioning candidate in the last election after failing to secure a Democratic endorsement. O’Brien, and William Sternberg also on Board of Finance, have a pending lawsuit against the town over term limits to the board.
O’Brien claims he is eligible for a third term given that he was appointed first to complete his father’s term. Whoever fills Norman’s seat would be serving the remaining two years of the four-year term.
CT Examiner reached out to O’Brien for comment without success.
Chesebrough suggested the matter was less a power struggle than an effort by outgoing board members to have a say in who sits on the board for the next few years.
“We have a lot of new members, which is exciting but it’s also a really complex board, and you have a lot of new people coming on it,” she told CT Examiner. “I would take it more that the existing board members just would like to be sure since they’ve been working together for years now, that they have a chance to probably weigh in on what happens with the future of the board because they care about the community.”
On Thursday evening, the special meeting to fill the sear was cancelled without explanation, but with the support of the local Democrats.
“I am relieved they chose not to move forward with this hastily scheduled meeting. With the new board taking office on November 18, there is a real chance to follow a fair process and begin to repair the trust that has been lost,” Kading responded in a statement.
Norman will be sworn in at town hall along with newly-elected First Selectman Bill Middleton, on Tuesday.