BREAKING NEWS: In an email sent to Wilton media at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon, May 7, Wilton’s Board of Selectmen released the legal opinion from town counsel Kenneth Bernhard in answer to the second petition from Sensible Wilton.

The second petition, submitted April 1 by Sensible Wilton’s president Alex Ruskewich and treasurer Kurt Noel, asks the town to create an ordinance repealing the bond resolution that funded the Miller-Driscoll renovation project. As written, the petition stated:

The resolution appropriating and authorizing bonds in the amount of $50,022,000 for planning, design, construction, renovation, equipping and furnishing of the Miller-Driscoll School and related costs is hereby repealed; provided, however, that the Town will pay all legal obligations to third parties, lawfully incurred, including any arising from bonds or contracts already made and entered into by the Town prior to such repeal.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the town counsel’s opinion states that Wilton’s Town Charter does not permit the “the power of initiative by petition” to repeal the bond resolution by ordinance.

The email from first selectman Bill Brennan also states that the matter will be discussed at the Bd. of Selectmen’s next regularly scheduled meeting on May 18.

The full opinion from Bernhard is published below: (click each page to enlarge)