Overflow Crowd Turns Out to Comment at BoS ‘Revote’ Meeting [UPDATED]

At the Tuesday, Feb. 17 regular Board of Selectmen meeting, Wilton’s selectmen rejected Sensible Wilton‘s call for a revote on the Miller-Driscoll renovation bonding question. The group had gathered close to 1,100 petition signatures asking town officials to call a revote, alleged a revote was justified because town officials committed election violations before and during the Sept. 23 and 27 vote on the Miller-Driscoll Renovation Bonding question.

But Tuesday night, town officials turned down the revote request following discussion by the board members, advice from Wilton’s town counsel, and almost 1.5 hours of public comments from residents. [See GOOD Morning Wilton‘s morning-after coverage of the meeting, here.]

The meeting drew an unusual number of people as a standing-room-only crowd showed up for the discussion. Anticipating a large crowd, officials set up overflow seating with a large-screen television in the town hall annex.

Public comment was allowed following remarks from the selectmen and Wilton’s town counsel, Ken Bernhard; first selectman Bill Brennan set “ground rules” (as he called them) for the speakers. He emphasized that the meeting was just that–a regular meeting–not a public hearing. He asked speakers to limit comments to three minutes so everyone would have an opportunity to speak, and to “…uphold Wilton’s tradition of being courteous and respectful to one another.”

A police officer stood at the ready in the room during the entire meeting. (It seemed unnecessary, though, as officials commented at meeting’s end on how polite and well-behaved everyone was.)

Brennan also reminded anyone wishing to make comment that the focus of the Board was very narrow, saying, “The focus for the board is the appropriateness and legality of the petition before us, not the purpose, needs or merits of the Miller Driscoll School renovation project.”

That meant the only question the board would consider Tuesday evening was whether the town charter allowed the selectmen to call for a revote on the bonding issue because 1,070 people who signed the petition were asking them to do so–and that the renovation plan and its cost would not be reconsidered or debated. Even if people had complaints or accusations regarding the actually plan, that would be off-topic for the evening’s discussion. That didn’t stop commenters from addressing some of their same major complaints that had been made in the months leading up to the meeting. Opponents to the project touched on many of the chief complaints, listed below*:

• that the project’s $50 million projected cost is too high
• that citizens were not adequately informed of meetings and the actual vote
• that town officials improperly campaigned to get the project passed by voters
• that town officials improperly used town resources and broke laws to get the project passed
• that the building committee was comprised of members who should not sit on it
• that members of town boards were advancing their own interests before the towns
• that contracted vendors would benefit financially from the project moving forward; and more.

Speakers seemed evenly divided between those that supported the petition for a revote, and those opposed.

What follows are selected quotes from all the speakers.

Alex Ruskewich, Sensible Wilton president:  We are not asking for a change in the vote; we are asking for a chance to have a lawful referendum. We contend that this referendum was conducted not in accordance with state law, [which states], ‘No expenditure of state or municipal funds shall be made to influence the vote, pro or against.’ We have documented evidence this was done. This is why we are looking at having a revote. …you’ll find specific prohibitions on the use of teachers, administrators, facilities, supplies and equipment–very specific what cannot be done; that was done, and we have examples to prove all of that. These are things that were done illegally.

Tom Curtin:  I’m not against the vote, I’m not against the outcome of the vote. The first selectman called for greater collaboration in the future; my wish would have been for greater collaboration in the past. I don’t think there was enough information imparted. Critics were chided for not having all the facts. It felt to me as, ‘Hey dude, shut up, you don’t like this, keep your mouth shut.’ There should have been much, much, much better communication and collaboration.

Richard Creeth, Bd. of Finance member: I’m speaking my personal opinion. There are four issues:  1) The vote was close, but the vote was in favor of the bonding motion. The majority wins, there is no provision for revote. 2): Citizens claimed they were unaware of the meeting and the vote. The town meeting was properly noticed in same way town meetings have always been. I would encourage people concerned about this to keep an eye open for meetings. 3) I’ve followed this process, there have been multiple discussions and public hearings. Initially it was a smaller project, the scope was different, but as time went on, this project was discussed ad nauseum and very concretely. If citizens had attended those hearings, they would know the answers to those questions. At the town meeting it was frustrating that the majority of questions had been asked and answered at prior public hearings. 4) [This] disturbs me deeply:   accusations of board members acting in their personal interest rather than the best interests of the town. This is the accusation that offends me the most. All three boards and committee members are unpaid volunteers, except the first selectman. These volunteers give up large amounts of their personal time. Some statements are defamatory and libelous. My votes were made considering all the facts I heard at public hearings and were, in my judgement, what’s best for town of Wilton.

Kurt Noel, Sensible Wilton officer:  Sensible Wilton is a very strong advocate of a prompt and complete renovation of the M-D school, which is very long overdue. Our objection is the way the scope of the project evolved and became not a renovation anyone but an extensive reconstruction. But tonight, [my point] has to do with a membership of the M-D building committee; the town charter…calls for very specific guidelines in the appointment of members of these building committees. “Shall be electors of the town” … does not mean some of the teachers who are on the building committee. There are teachers that are not residents of Wilton. Another point:  “No member of an elected board may hold any other elected office or be appointed a municipal officer …” In other words, they didn’t want people on these boards who are in a position to vote on them. People who propose are not the ones who also approve. All but 4 or 5 of the M-D building Committee members are on there illegally.

Editor’s note: Kurt Noel also spoke about the Code Red reverse 9-1-1 system, and referred to a discussion between selectmen at a prior BoS meeting about whether it should be used to notify voters of town meetings.

Glenn Hemmerly, BoE member, building committee member:  The building committee was formed almost two years ago, members named and known to everyone. The 20-plus meetings that have been held, and it’s only now when the vote doesn’t go the way certain people like it the complaint is registered that the committee was constructed illegally. Where were you in the beginning when the committee was formed? Why haven’t you attended the 20-plus meetings to learn about what we did, and the effort and work that went into it. I’m bothered greatly by that.

About innuendo and insinuation that people on the committee have a personal interest:  I confess, I have a strong personal interest in this project. I was fortunate to put two children through the school system; my wife and I are taxpayers; but more importantly I have a personal interest in the work I do insuring the citizens and this town gets the project it needs, and deserves, that the students get the project they need and deserve, as rapidly as possible.

Ross Tartell: I teach data graduate level course called Data-based Interventions–how do you drive change using basic data. I looked at the data. Editor’s note:  Tartell reviews the material he outlined in his letter to the editor, here, criticizing the data put forward by Sensible Wilton, comparing construction costs per student and per square foot with other school construction projects. If you look at the data, the data tells a different story. If that was the story people heard, do you think those people who signed the petition would have signed the petition when they hear, ‘We got a bargain.’

Mohammed Ayoub:  I am an architect, I design hospitals, schools and higher education buildings for state, private, internationally and nationally. I am glad you talk about data. We do not design schools based on per person, we design on per square foot. Newtown is a comparable cost, it’s a brand new building and it’s actually 15 percent bigger than Miller-Driscoll. Per square foot, it actually is cheaper. That is the data I’m concerned about.

Our firm just finished the Univ. of Maryland Physics lab, that was around $450/sq. foot., a brand new building. I am concerned the cost. I think we need a building, it’s not about renovation. Perhaps the building committee or finance committee is not well informed but our numbers are completely and grossly off. You are designing a hospital, the cost is much more complicated at $500/sq. ft. We need something, that’s why we moved here.

I’m happy to volunteer my time, I will do this for free, because I’m part of the town. But your numbers are wrong. Somebody has pulled something completely gross and that needs to be fixed.

At this point in the meeting, first selectman Brennan reminded attendees that the issue in front of the board was very narrow: “What is before the BoS is the appropriateness and legality of the petition. All this information is good, but it seems to be all about the merits of the MD project. The board is not debating that tonight. The board is debating the petition that has come to us. I ask people to focus on what we’re here about.”

Allison Mark: I did vote, I don’t normally vote, but I put aside time to vote. I was flabbergasted. Everybody with little children that I know all told me they were encouraged by the school to come out to vote and they did not want to sign the petition. And all the people I know who are older said they didn’t know what was going on, they never heard about this vote.  It seems like a fast one was pulled. It does appear to many of us citizens, if you check the people who did vote, especially the people who voted for this large renovation, it would be interesting to see their history of voting. I think you’ll see a parallel. Many of the people were encouraged by different methods, flyers, with young kids to get out and vote. They were emotionally appealed on the level of ‘for your children who go the school now.’ It feels for the rest of us like the wool was pulled over our eyes.

Patti Temple: One of the reasons given by the building committee for selecting TSKP as the architect for the project was because of TSKP’s experience, and I quote, “assisting districts with marketing projects to insure voter approval.” Not to communicate with and educate the community at large on the plans and cost, but to insure voter approval. $13,000 was allocated for such marketing. In late July 2014 the word ‘marketing’ was dropped and the plan was retitled ‘MD Community Information Plan.’ Those with children and most likely to vote yes were the focus of the plan.

Between Aug. 11 and Sept 18, 2014, the building committee and representatives spent over 30 hours on 13 days devoted to promoting the renovation plan to parents of Wilton students. This took place on school grounds and also sending home info. That’s a full court press. Conversely, during that same time period, the general public was invited to one information session at the Wilton Library three days after Labor Day that lasted less than two hours. At the least, the town could have used the Code Red system, whose tag line is, ‘Keeping Citizens Informed.’

Money spent to get preferred voters to the polls is not allowed, it’s prohibited–but that’s what was done.

Buck Griswold:  We’ve been here 35 years, I’ve been involved in municipal governance over 50 years. Wilton is a special place. People have been extremely outgoing in terms of willingness to work and volunteer, to give of their time and funds. We’re setting an extremely bad precedent if we allowed this situation even suggesting the selectmen and all of the different bodies who have worked on this project should have a revote. Not only would it be a precedent in terms of the future governance of this town, but more importantly it’s a major turnoff to volunteerism. This is so critical to what this town is all about. We have trouble getting good volunteers at times. I feel so strongly it would be a big mistake.

Steve Hudspeth:  I am surprised to hear people say the information was not provided well before the election. There was tons of information; both the print press and online press went into great, great detail about this bill. To not know that, one would really have to have his head in the ground.

The number of petition signers, 1,070. The number of petition signers who voted, 320. That leaves 750 people who signed the petition who didn’t come to vote. If it were legally possible, and I don’t think it is, it would be absolutely, utterly a travesty to allow people who didn’t come and exercise their franchise to now have a chance to redo it.

Take the 952 who voted no; subtract from that the 320 who signed the petition, what you get is 632 who chose not to sign the petition. A petition of this sort… sets a precedent that would be tremendously destructive. It would set a horrible precedent and would reward those people who failed to exercise their franchise by giving a revote.

David Waters:, I feel strongly that the process is important, this is a real case that we have to stand firm on. People had a right to vote, they did vote, those that chose to do so. I think it’s appalling that you have less than 20 percent of the people determining what should happen in a town; but that’s not the fault of the 17 percent that voted, that’s the fault of the people that didn’t vote. For someone to say, ‘We weren’t informed,’ that’s the problem–it is the obligation of the electorate to be informed. The information was available, but people chose either not to become informed or not to take advantage of their obligation to vote. Those that did should not be disenfranchised. It is not possible to do a re-do. The consequences if you did, maybe you’d have to have a third revote.

Paul Burnham, served on the charter revision commission:  The decision to eliminate the power of initiative in respect to bonding issues was certainly deliberate. Members of the [charter] commission were well-informed of the difficulties that would ensue for borrowing to be authorized as a result of the petition process. Secondly, section 33-B of the charter states that the Town Meeting may not amend any proposal made by the BoS for the issuance of bonds. Finally, the commission spent no time considering the question of if the Town Meeting could rescind its own action, i.e. by voting a second time on an issue. Those of us on the commission were well aware that if this were considered a residual power of the Town Meeting, it would only result in chaos of uncertainty that would result.

Gil Bray, former BoE member:  I oppose the petition for a revote. If we do this, this negates my vote, I really don’t want my vote to be discounted. That would be what would happen. I did vote, and quite a few of the petitioners did not vote, and so I resent they’re trying to overturn my vote. This petition is coming at exactly the wrong time. We have volunteers actively involved in budget preparation. The last thing we want to do is spend time, money and talent of volunteers organizing for this type of event. This project has been discussed since 2007, the specifications are always available to the public–anyone could have been read from 2007 on. The vote passed, the work of the committee is ongoing. Building committee members are in no way interested in wasting money.

Brian Lilly: You can get anyone to sign a petition, the key is can you get them to come and vote. We have a vote. It passed. Whether it be by a small or large amount, it’s irrelevant. We can only hope irregularities will no longer happen in the future and people will be more attuned to what the process needs to be to put forth a legal vote. But to have a revote would also be illegal. To compensate for irregularities by having another illegal vote seems to be counterintuitive.

What we have to focus on in not what happened, but what happens on future votes and on the project itself as we move forward. Maybe this will get more people involved in being civically minded. We don’t have a revote just because we got some people to sign a petition.

Paul Hannah, former first selectman, former BoF chair:  Volunteers are what the town relies on. They have integrity and give their time. Sometimes voters don’t agree with what’s been proposed. I remember presiding over the ’96 budget rejection–the budget and school bonding issues were rejected. They rejected proposals after careful organization the correct way. Not with appeals to the election commission; not with with FOI documents requests costing Wilton thousands; not with attacks on volunteers; not with complaints to the State Ethics Commission; they did it at the ballot box.

Whatever the reason, they lost by 27 votes. They now seek to reverse the vote. The charter does not allow you to call for a revote. The meeting and referendum were proper. The proponents of the project won by 27 votes. The petition should be denied and the town should move on.

Marianne Gustafson:

I don’t think this [revote] is setting a precedent. What is disturbing is setting a precedent to allow a vote to happen or stand that was improperly gotten. More than 19 presentations that the school community got, parents of school children, versus one [for] the general public. I don’t think that’s fair to the general public.

I heard from many, many people they didn’t know the referendum was in September. For the only general information session to be held the week after Labor Day weekend does not feel respectful or inclusive.

There was a preponderance of the schools improperly using their communications systems to target their parents. That should not have happened. There was undue influence within a selected, targeted group, it’s not permitted.

This is about precedent about doing the right thing for our children and setting the right example. What happened to achieve that vote was more than one technicality. That’s not the way this town should be approaching the residents, their children, the voting public and their projects. This should be…another vote where no one is disenfranchised–they can vote again. You’re not being eliminated from voting properly.

Al Alper, BoF member: I voted for this. I’ve been an advocate. I’m the most fiscally conservative member of the BoF. A do-over is not allowed. I would warn you that if you do that, along with the other residents in the majority, we would have cause in court against the town for doing that.

Volunteers have been disparaged, myself included. If you think $50 million is expensive, try getting rid of 100 volunteers and paying people to do this job, in 10 years it will exceed $50 million. I would guarantee before your children graduate, you will have spent over $100 million.

Marissa Lowthert:  I look at the advocacy by the school, where it says “Vote for Miller-Driscoll” on the Cider Mill site explicit, that’s against the law. The principal sent an email out appealing to the M-D parents to vote for it, again that’s against the law. The superintendent actually warned the staff not to advocate for it and yet that still occurred. Why such effort was put forth to advocate for this.

There were volunteers who wanted to be part of it and were not permitted. There’s a lot of people who spoke tonight who would be willing to be actively involved in determining this project moving forward. I would ask that you look to some of these people who spoke tonight, and have specific skills, who would be active members of this project.

We need to look to the students, and realize this project is several years out, and these students need a new roof and new HVAC system now, not in several years.

Jim Newton, building committee volunteer:   I think this is ridiculous. A legal vote was taken, the measure was passed, it’s time to proceed with the building.

*Update, 2/25/15:  After reader feedback, the article was updated to reflect that not all of the major complaints opponents had in the months leading up to the 2/17 BoS meeting were mentioned by speakers. While they touched on all but two of those listed, GMW included all of them to give the broader context of issues opponents had raised since this issue flared.