Marcia Chambers Photo
As Democratic majority leader of the Representative Town Meeting (RTM), Anthony Giardiello had a perfect perch from which to view Branford’s sometimes stormy legislative politics.
Now he has resigned from the RTM, where he has served for nearly 12 years, because he has moved to a new home in East Haven.
For about five of those 12 years, he sat in seat #1 as the Branford party’s majority leader.
Branford approved the creation of an RTM in 1958 in order to provide the town “with a modern, workable form of government, recognizing that the public Town Meeting has largely become ineffective because of increasing population and the complexity of governmental problems,” the town charter says.
There are 30 voting members of the RTM. The majority party elects the moderator who votes only when there is a tie. The clerk has full voting rights. Counting both moderator and clerk there are a total of 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans currently serving on the RTM. Two years ago there were 21 Democrats and 9 Republicans, the minimum required for the minority party.
We asked Giardiello, 49, and an environmental engineer, how the RTM as an institution had changed since he first took office in the year 2000.
“I’ve seen two major changes in the character and makeup of the RTM,” he said.
DEMS AGAINST DEMS
Giardiello said that the first big change he witnessed came about when a majority of the Democrats on the RTM would not support the Cheryl Morris administration shortly after she and town counsel Ed Marcus, a former state Democratic chairman, took office. Morris served as first selectwoman from November 2005 to November 2007. She now supports most local Republican causes.
He said it didn’t take long for the Democrats on the RTM to also figure out that Marcus wanted to eliminate the RTM in favor of a town council form of government. Click here to read about that in May 2006. At one point Marcus said to get the RTM’s two-third required votes, he needed Republican support. But the Republicans, led by minority leader Kurt Schwanfelder, would not go along and ultimately the RTM voted it down.
By August 2006 Morris was moving quickly to reorganize town government, hiring an outside consultant to advise her on changing the town’s form of government. Click here to read about that.
Giardiello said that these events and others “made for a different dynamic because you had half or more of the Democrats essentially aligning with the Republicans on many, many issues. The thing I didn’t like about the whole [Morris] administration was that if you were not with them 100 percent of the time, you were against them and your name was mud. I gave them a little bit of consideration and leeway at the beginning.”
But it didn’t last long.
Early on in his RTM service, Giardiello recalled there was a period when “we were 15-15 [Democrats and Republicans] on the RTM, but I have never really been in the minority party.” When the RTM was evenly divided, he said both sides of the aisle had to bend more.
“Historically I like the fact that we are a town where power can switch hands. I think it is a better environment. Republicans grouse a lot that we [the Democrats] have such a majority but it is easier to say that then to say they are doing a crummy job campaigning.”
Giardiello said that the days of an RTM majority leader being able to put his arm around his chair and give a thumbs up or down to tell his colleagues how to vote are long gone. He said Morris and her supporters thought they could rule that way. “But those days are gone. If I showed up at a caucus with the attitude of I am going to tell you all how to vote, half of them would tell me where to go.”
Following Morris, Democrat Unk DaRos was again elected to be first selectman. During his first two terms the RTM “was very cooperative in a bipartisan way. It was even that way for John Opie, when he served as Republican first selectman before Morris was elected, Gairdiello said.
Frank Twohill Jr., the Republican minority leader, has been on the RTM for two decades. Both he and Giardiello assumed their leadership roles in 2007. “He has been great to work with; he has an open mind. It is not just a one-party line,” Twohill said in an interview. “He has always tried to do the best for the town. He is open-minded.”
Twohill said Giardiello worked hard to reduce the budget. (Giardiello recalled one year when he voted with the Republicans because they wanted to reduce the budget by $300,000 when the Democrats wanted to hold out for a $600,000 cut or none at all.)
“I am disappointed that he has stepped down,” Twohill said. ;
A NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY
But over the past couple of years “it has kinda shifted back into a confrontational thing with newer people coming into the Republican Party who don’t have that history or appreciation for the fact that we can actually work together,” Giardiello said.
“Is there less cooperation than in the past?” we asked.
“It is worse than less cooperation, they back peddle on issues like Tabor that they helped shepherd through, that they helped champion.” Click here to read about the Tabor land issue.
In addition, he said the Republican side of the aisle never lets an issue go even if it has been decided, including issues that have been judicially resolved. Click here to read about the Founders Village case.
“I have been saying that this is the party of beating dead horses” he said of the tendency of the Republican side of the aisle to keep old issues current. “It’s a way of keeping you mired down and perhaps not accomplishing anything,” he added.
Twohill disagreed with Giardiello’s observation.
“There are issues that have to be tied up afterwards. If there was procedure used wrong or there are still loose ends, then it is the government’s obligation to tie these up. You don’t just move on because if there were mistakes made you don’t want to make them again,” Twohill said.
At the same time both men always shake hands at the beginning and the end of each meeting. And, he added, he considers Twohill a friend.
Other towns with RTM forms of government are apolitical in nature. “Would it work better if all members were not affiliated with a political party? The Eagle asked.
“I would support that,” Giardiello said.
THE PETITION ISSUE
The petition system began 2010 when the RTM’s Rules & Ordinance committee approved a new process for bringing issues to the RTM. The RTM later adopted the new process. It was pushed by the current moderator, Chris Sullivan, who when he served as a leader of the R&O Committee idealistically believed the process would open another door of communication. The Republicans pressed for it, championing the cause of Wayne Cooke, who, it turned out, submitted virtually all the petitions over the course of the next two years. Cooke has been engaged in a long-term public fight with Town Hall over his farm taxes and other issues on his own agenda.
From the outset Giardiello said he was against adopting a petition process that enabled any item to go directly onto the agenda and directly to committee regardless of whether it belonged there or not. There was no oversight. All that was needed was 50 signatures on a petition. Typically the same people signed Cooke’s petitions.
“The reason I was against the petitions was that there were already plenty of ways to get something on agenda. All it takes if a resident has something they want on the agenda, all it takes is one RTM member to sponsor it.” (Or a resident may write a letter to the RTM, who come to a meeting to address the RTM.)
Giardeillo did not attend the last RTM meeting because he was out of town on business, but he said he would have voted with the majority in repealing the petitions. (Click here to read the story.) “I would absolutely have voted to get rid of them. I was against it back in 2010,” he said. The petitions were repealed but the R&O Committee plans to adopt new language that will give the moderator the authority to handle them—as he does in other areas.
The petitions did not serve the RTM well, Giardiello said because they tied the committees up with issues that often didn’t belong before them. Now that will change.
He said he firmly believed that the RTM is a strong institution. “It is as healthy as the quality of the people who are willing to do the job. I will say it is hard to find 30 people who want to do that job with no compensation.
“I think both political parties have to do a better job of attracting people. We have got good people on there, but they are hard to come by. Anybody willing to volunteer to put in that much time is okay in my book.”
Giardiello, who has also served as parliamentarian when necessary, knows Roberts Rules of Order well. He said the rules are sufficient to run the RTM as long as they are used. In the past Scott Thayer, the former moderator, rarely used them. Chris Sullivan, the current moderator, uses them and meetings are now more orderly, Giardiello said.
“All you need is Roberts Rules of Order and a moderator who uses them. You need them to keep the meeting running in order. So that everyone gets a chance to speak,” he said. The talking period, he said, should not become monopolized by one person. And then he shouts you down if you don’t agree with him,” he added, referring to Cooke’s style. Cooke has argued he should be allowed to speak on every item on the RTM call and while there is a time limit, the moderator says he often exceeds it.
Giardiello said he believes strongly in residents volunteering to work for the town many needs. The RTM is an elected body. “I got a lot of satisfaction out of it. I believe everyone should do something for the town. People do different things. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. And actually I might enjoy doing something like, like working for the Branford Land Trust or the Greenway Trail.
Some projects take a lot of time. The new fire headquarters was one of them. “This was important for the town; this was the time to get it built; there were opposition. I literally spent every spare moment I had on the phone for a month. I can’t do that every month. But when an issue is important I can’t count the hours.”
He said he views the Republican approach to the firehouse as “political gamesmanship at its worst. Either you are for it or against it. Have the courage of your convictions.” The Republicans postured that they wanted the firehouse but not at the expense of giving up the public works building on whose site the firehouse was to be built. Click here to read about it. The Republicans maintained that the future of the public works building had to be determined before work began on the firehouse. In the end, the public works building was moved to a rental facility. A committee is now studying places for its permanent home.
Giardiello has lived in Branford since he was 4 years old. He said it is nice to have people on the RTM who have lived in town for a long time and understand its history. “That’s what I liked about Kurt,” he said of Schwanfelder, who was minority leader on the RTM and is now a member of the Board of Finance. “I didn’t agree with him on everything; but his motives are pure.”
Asked if he had any advice for the incoming majority leader and there are several seeking the position, Giardiello said: “Treat everybody with respect.” David Baker, the current chair of the RTM’s Administrative Services Committee, is expected to be one candidate but there are others in the wings.
He noted that he is moving to East Haven, but his new residence is just over the Short Beach border. Some day, he said, he will be back. “Branford is still my home. It’s still my town.”
###