With Permission
Proposed fire headquarters
After the Branford Representative Town Meeting (RTM) was cancelled on Aug. 11, the nine Republican members of the RTM and Republican Third Selectman John Opie, all members of the Republican caucus, decided to hold a meeting of their own. They met that night at the home of Frank Twohill, their minority leader.
Actually, they met in his garage.
This meeting set in motion three more private meetings and in the end, the caucus emerged with an alternative plan that the Republicans are proposing for a new firehouse.
“We all agreed we would oppose the new firehouse unless we were told where the public works building would go,” Twohill said in a recent interview. The Department of Public Works, which is located next to the fire headquarters, would have to be moved to a temporary location so that a new firehouse could replace the crumbling firehouse now on that site.
At issue is a proposed new $12 million firehouse the town will get if the Democrats, which hold a 21 – 9 majority on the RTM, vote for it. It is designed to serve the needs of Branford for the next 50 years.
A showdown on the issue takes place before the full RTM this Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Canoe Brook senior center. Anthony Giardiello, the Democratic majority leader, said he has told Twohill he wants an “up or down” vote on the floor and will not accept the Republicans’ request to refer the entire matter back to committees.
The Republicans’ first major test came at a joint public meeting last month. On Aug. 26 the RTM Public Services and Ways and Means committees voted 7 – 4 to reject the fire headquarters plan. Two Democrats, Lisa Avitable and Kevin O’Donnell, crossed party lines to join the five Republicans against the plan.
The Republicans’ recent private meetings are legal — but only if they are political in nature. Political caucuses are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act even if the meetings are held in private houses and garages. The same applies to Republican Town Committee (RTC) meetings. Twohill said he was mindful of the FOI rules.
Thomas Hennick, the Freedom of Information Act education director, told the Eagle that if members of the “same board and the same party meet they can do whatever they want, wherever they want” without violating freedom of information law.
As it turned out, under the town charter the members of the Board of Selectmen are also ex-officio members of the RTM. So Opie’s role is protected as well. The FOI Commission has held that the activities of caucuses and political parties do not constitute a meeting under their laws.
The Republicans’ Aug. 11 meeting launched the first of three meetings in which the Republicans and Opie, a former first selectman, set out to undo four major projects that have come to fruition under the DaRos administration or have been launched by it. After the Aug. 11 meeting, two more meetings were held, this time by the Republican Town Committee. Members of both the caucus and other Republicans were invited to dinner and discussion at the home of Marc Riccio, a new RTM member who is also the vice-chair of the RTC.
Tonight the group returns to Twohill’s garage for a final strategy meeting before the Wednesday RTM meeting. Both parties also hold caucus meetings prior to the RTM meeting.
“If you are having a clandestine RTM meeting, that should be a noticed meeting. If you are meeting to figure out how to get your guy elected by doing this, this and this, that’s fine,” Hennick said in an interview. “but if they are having a clandestine RTM meeting or something like that, then that should be a noticed meeting. If they are talking about major projects, fine as long as they are saying this is the position we must take to get re-elected. If they do that it is OK.”
But if they meet to devise a policy approach on public issues pending before the RTM, that would be a problem.
Whatever their actual conversation, the end result of their discussions must be political in nature. If it is not, then the meetings are in violation of the state Freedom of Information Act.
Throughout the course of their meetings, the Republicans acted as engineers (Opie is one), planners and designers, roles not envisioned for the legislative arm of town government. The Republicans describe these new plans without providing figures, feasibility studies or research. They did not consult with Jim Finch, the town’s financial director, or Janice Plaziak, the town engineer, the town employees said. Both have overseen the firehouse/public works projects for the past six years.
GOP Sees Town Secrecy
Twohill and other Republicans have alleged secrecy in the unfolding of the project, a claim that did not sit well with Plaziak and Finch.
Plaziak said in interview that she was dismayed by the RTM accusations that she had kept information from the RTM and other town bodies: “I would like to dispel the notion that this was sprung on the town at the last minute. All this information has been available for as long as I have been working on it –for the last five or six years. We have had countless meetings, plus public advertisements. This is not a secret.”
Late Friday she issued a timeline on the projects to rebut this assertion. It shows the fire and public works discussions have been part of public meetings discussions since July, 2004. In January 2010, Plaziak said both the Board of Finance and the RTM were updated on the status of both projects. The Board of Finance has unanimously approved the project.
Fire Chief Jack Ahern told the Eagle that “throughout this process we have not left public works in the lurch. We know other places in town where you could put public works. It will probably take three years. We need vetting for three years.”
In recent weeks the Republican Party, a minority in Branford, has openly attacked the Democratic administration of First Selectman Unk DaRos, saying it “is wasting tax dollars” by moving the public works facility to a rented quarters so that the fire headquarters may be built. It wants public works to stay put at its current 45 North Main St. address.
There has been overall public support for a new firehouse and ambulance quarters at its current address. Facing political fallout from their decision to reject the firehouse, the Republicans subsequently issued an 11th hour “alternative plan” they claim will cost less. Ray Ingraham, the head of the Republican Town Committee, sent out the alternative plan on behalf of the nine Republicans RTM members, he said, because the fate of the public works building was so uncertain. He said the RTM members wrote it together. It turns out the plan goes way beyond the fire house.
Senior Center Swap
The alternative plan takes on a town senior center swap, declaring that the new firehouse be placed where the senior center is supposed to go at 175 North Main St., even though the site is too small and expanding it might not be feasible. The Republicans have seized on the DaRos swap as the way for them to do business and to undo his. They would put up a new fire headquarters at 175 North Main St. after tearing down the current building.
The published Republican plan, one page long, makes no mention of the additional three acres needed to make the 175 North Main St. site viable. Those three acres, at the back of the property, are currently under contract with First Student Bus Company of North Branford. A new five year contract was recently signed with the company to house the town’s school buses, adding yet another complication.
Chief Ahern said the three acres are essential. In addition, he said, “I did call our architect for a rough figure as to what it would cost to redo the site plans for the fire house. It would be a minimum of $150,000.” Another major problem is the geography: It does not have alternative access to the fire house as the current site has, he said.
Twohill, a 20-year-veteran of the RTM, conceded that the proposed senior center site is too small and is dependent upon acquiring the three-acre site.
Giardiello, the Democratic majority leader, added: “There is a new five year lease for the school bus site. You would have to buy that out and find a place to put the school buses. And you have to buy the land.”
The Republican plan also removes the current office building from the site which would render the asset swap moot. In exchange for the building at 175 North Main, now owned by the Giordano family’s Queach Corporation, the town would give Queach the current Board of Education building at 1111 Main St., a coveted property across the street from the town Green. The town’s Planning and Zoning Commission will hear Queach’s application to change the Board of Education building’s use to a business and professional office use this Thursday. If the plan were adopted The Board of Education would be placed at the Canoe brook senior center site.
Finch, the town’s director of finance, said the major flaw in the Republican plan is that it takes a swap and destroys the asset. “There is nothing to show for an asset that you knock down,” he said of the 175 North Main St. building that would have to be torn down for a new fire headquarters. “So you have an asset swap and then destroy the building.” This problem apparently did not occur to the Republicans. In the end, the proposed swap would be undone.
Moreover, Finch said, a new project starting from scratch means more costs, not less. “There is the cost of waiting. Interest rates and constructions costs will go up. They haven’t figured that in,” he said in an interview.
Public works would stay put at its current home at 45 North Main S., and the senior center would join it, separated by trees and landscape. Or, in its latest planning idea, which Twohill seems to love, the Republicans would send the senior center to the new Y facility near Exit 56, apparently not realizing it is regional and a private for-profit operation.
Said DaRos: “Why would we privatize our senior center? Why would we do it? And then we would have to make it regional, because the Y is regional. The Y is a private facility. It is a business,” the First Selectman observed.
Reaction to Plan
“Their goal is to delay, delay, delay,” said Fire Chief Ahern who has fought for years to replace a firehouse that is nothing short of a fire hazard and while he won’t say so directly, a building that is a liability waiting to happen. The building could not pass code in its current condition.
The town’ s top officials and Democratic leaders say the Republican plan is fundamentally flawed, defies logic and common sense and should be cast aside.
DaRos seemed baffled, as did most others we interviewed, about the Republicans’ last-minute plan.
“The firehouse plan has been out there for a long, long time. When they voted to design the fire house, the site was never an issue. Now all of a sudden it is an issue,” DaRos said.
We asked Twohill why he did not raise these ideas years ago. . “That is a good question,” he replied. Then he added that the Republicans had only thought of it in their meetings last month. Twohill said he did talk to Director of Public Works Edward Masotta, whose fervent desire Twohill said is to stay right where he is, a plan that would stop the fire headquarters from being built on the site.
Twohill was unclear about how the public works building would evolve at its current site. He said it could be put in the nearly 50-year-old firehouse building or it could be otherwise renovated. “Are you suggesting the fire house become the new home for the public works building?” we asked. He said, “Yes.” Then he said “I am not sure. This hasn’t been thought about. It is a possibility. The point is that it is a lot cheaper.”
Plaziak said the public works building is old and needs to double in size. In addition, she says, there are environmental issues. Gasoline has been found in ground water samples under the public works building and the ground must be remediated regardless of what building goes where, she said. A temporary location has been found for public works and a building committee is in place to select a final site. In the end public works might wind up at the town-owned Tabor property, the place where DaRos originally wanted to put it.
Plaziak said there are no formal plans for a new public works building because the RTM in its wisdom did not allocate funds for a full design last year. It did it for the firehouse, but not for public works. The RTM is still in limbo on a plan for public works.
Delay of Project
Ingraham, the RTC chairman, said he thought putting the firehouse at the proposed senior center site could be done quickly. In an interview he said he thought new approvals could be obtained “by the end of the year,” in less than four months.
But his view was deemed wildly unrealistic by town officials. The initial process to obtain new appropriations for a new design, first from the Board of Finance and then from the RTM, would take several months itself. Then the entire project would go before the regulatory bodies, Inland Wetlands and Planning and Zoning. It could take a year — -about to the time of a new first selectman’s race.
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