At Tuesday night’s (Dec. 17) Board of Selectmen meeting, First Selectman Toni Boucher reversed course and said she would now allow both the Board of Finance and the Planning and Zoning Commission unimpeded access to the town’s full email distribution list for communication.
She announced that decision after repeatedly emphasizing that such a move would contradict both legal advice and the practices of several surrounding towns.
Last month Boucher refused to let the BOF distribute a newsletter to residents through the full town list it has used for the past four years in the town’s “E-Alert” system, arguing that it was hers to use solely as first selectman.
Calling her actions censorship, Raimondi took his case directly to the four other BOS members, who found favor in his request.
Both Raimondi and P&Z Chair Rick Tomasetti — who faced similar challenges earlier this year trying to send a communication to residents through the town’s email list — were asked to attend Tuesday’s BOS meeting to address the issue in further detail.
Boucher, however, opened the discussion by explaining that she was going to allow use without further argument, despite advice from counsel, as well as different practices of nearby municipalities that she cited.
“Although it’s been recommended to me that I do not do this, in the spirit of cooperation by all involved,” Boucher said, “I propose that unlike all of these other towns, this administration gives the Board of Finance and Planning and Zoning chairmen the ability, independent, to send out their own communication newsletter at any time without review by the first selectman using the first selectman’s subscription list, all of it, just like we do now.”
“You have my commitment that the comments and suggestions by this board and our chairs of P&Z and of Finance will be implemented,” she said.
“Essentially I’m putting in place the process we have now without any review by the first selectman and not even any notes. They basically can have it sent out whenever they wish,” she said, making her only condition that they alert her office when something is being sent so there is no overlap.
BOS members voiced no objections, but clarified that the newsletters should not present individual opinions, especially those of the board or commission chairs, but must only offer hard facts about process and proceedings, and they must have the tacit approval of the entire board or commission.
“One element of the policy should be that the communication must be approved or authorized by the elected board or commission based on procedures adopted by the board or commission,” Selectman Bas Nabulsi said.
Raimondi, who earlier presented the BOS with some general communication guidelines that he discussed with the BOF at its last meeting, said that has always been their practice.
“I was actually given that authority [by the BOF] a year ago,” he said.
Selectman Ross Tartell asked about the history of the newsletter and communications in general.
“I think we need to come back to the business case of why we started this conversation in the first place … What is the reason that we need to have this conversation?” he said.
Boucher said the issue was that her office was providing “a courtesy” by allowing the BOF to use the email list, but that it was being presented as a “demand” and a “right” following her attempt to change the practice.
“There was a pushing back … so that’s what precipitated some of this,” she said, without specifically mentioning Raimondi.
Boucher pointed out that regular communication to town residents started during the COVID pandemic, and included mobile calls from then-First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice.
“That became something that people appreciated for sure but those mobile calls haven’t continued,” she said.
Since then, however, monthly email updates from the first selectperson’s office have continued under both Vanderslice and Boucher, along with periodic emails from the BOF. It wasn’t until just this past November that Boucher raised the issue of curbing them.
Simultaneously, the town made changes to the subscription options by which residents can receive emails. Where once the Board of Finance newsletter had been explicitly included with messages from the first selectman’s office, now residents are required to select a new separate BOF-only choice in order to receive communications from the Finance Board.
Raimondi said that the change was made without any public announcement or alerting his board. He also noted that while Boucher maintains that the list of subscribers to the original list is solely ‘owned’, as it were, by her office, the list was partially generated by the BOF and that it belonged to the residents as a whole.
He also argued that very few residents are even aware of needing to check a new box in order to receive BOF communication.
Raimondi implied that Boucher’s objection to the November newsletter was driven by her unhappiness with the BOF’s budget guidance, but Boucher denied the claim.
BOS member Kim Healy asked why Ira Bloom, Wilton’s town attorney, was not in attendance Tuesday night, as he had said he would be.
“We discussed it and he said it wasn’t necessary because he gave his opinion [during the last BOS meeting] and you guys don’t agree with it, so …” Boucher said.
During the prior BOS meeting on Dec. 2, when Raimondi brought the communication issue forward, Bloom had opined on the topic, speaking against a regular newsletter from the BOF, as well as advising Boucher against even allowing the discussion on the BOS agenda.
Bloom also stressed that P&Z especially had to be careful to refrain from direct communication with residents on commission matters, as that could lead to legal issues.
Tuesday night, Healy said she had hoped Bloom would be in attendance.
“I was hoping he would apologize, frankly,” Healy said. “I didn’t appreciate some of his comments [at the last meeting]. He made it seem … somewhat confusing. He made a statement that he’s never seen a town do what we’re doing, but we’ve been doing it.”
Throughout Tuesday’s meeting, Boucher repeatedly stressed that she was granting approval despite Bloom’s legal advice against it, as well as the practices of other towns in the area.
She detailed her outreach to at least six different area municipal leaders, including those from Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Ridgefield and Westport. She read portions of their responses to her in which they described how they handle communications relating to elected boards and commissions. None of them have boards that provide regular newsletters and some of the towns don’t appear to allow those elected boards opportunities to reach out directly to residents at all.
Boucher also posed the question to other municipality leaders about whether other elected boards or commissions could retain their own counsel, with all speaking against the idea. She didn’t initially explain why she made that inquiry, although when Tartell asked why she had asked the question of other area leaders, Boucher gave a broad answer.
“It was just a comment made off-handedly at some other committee meeting,” she told Tartell, “and so it got a lot of people’s attention … and I think they dropped it, so I don’t know if that’s a serious comment. I just wanted to put that issue to rest.”
In fact, it was during the last BOF meeting during which BOF member Timothy Birch asked whether that board could and perhaps should retain its own counsel, as some BOF members expressed their concern about whether his guidance was in their best interest after at least two interactions with Bloom. The matter is due to be discussed further at the BOF’s next meeting.
Healy asked if there was any discussion of replacing Wilton’s town counsel, but Boucher said she had not heard anything in that regard.
Both Tomasetti and Raimondi waited for more than two hours at Tuesday’s meeting before briefly sharing their appreciation that Boucher had consented to share the email list.
Tomasetti told the BOS that, while he agreed with Bloom from a zoning perspective that his commission needed to be wary of sending things out, in P&Z’s role as a planning body it was sometimes necessary.
“I do believe there’s a need for the commission to get information out to the public,” he said, noting he had never thought there was a distinct first selectperson’s list.
New Email System
Along with making changes to the distribution subscription list, the town is currently revising its email system and will likely be taking away some of the direct email addresses for some elected and appointed officials, according to Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker.
The new system, he said, is more costly, but will have a higher level of security. In order to keep all the email addresses it currently has, along with related storage of each account, it would run an additional $200,000 above current annual costs.
“[The] Board of Education is separate,” he said. “They have their own system.”
He said each additional email account, beyond the town’s roughly 150 employees, would require close to $700 each year for licensing and storage.
The BOS members, however, said they believe that at least some boards and commissions should retain individual email accounts, based in part on legal concerns.
Knickerbocker asked the members to contact him with their lists of which boards and commissions they felt should retain individual emails.
How magnanimous of our leader to allow our elected officials to communicate with us. When does the statue go up?