In recent weeks, as all eyes have been watching Newtown’s municipal budget falter at the polls, the other big issue in town, the town’s pending acquisition and administration of Fairfield Hills, has been making slow progress toward its own reckoning day. While town officials have yet to settle on a date for a town vote on a master plan for the conservation and development of Fairfield Hills, they have been busy addressing some of the preliminaries.

Earlier this month, the Board of Selectmen approved the wording of a proposed act it will ask local legislators to put before the state Legislature establishing a Fairfield Hills Authority in Newtown. The authority, for all intents and purposes, will run the show at Fairfield Hills, except for the parts of the campus designated in the master plan for municipal use, which the town will continue to control as it would any other municipal property. Under the terms of the master plan currently before the Legislative Council, most of the campus slated for town use will be a rubble field before it is groomed into playing fields or cleared as a site for a new town hall. No fewer than seven buildings will succumb to the wrecking ball, under the plan. Most of what is left standing –– Woodbury Hall, Newtown Hall, Canaan House, Stratford Hall, Stamford Hall, and other vacant residential houses –– is destined to be leased to private enterprises and, hence, controlled by the Fairfield Hills Authority.

Even two buildings of keen interest to local groups –– Plymouth Hall and Bridgeport Hall –– are slated to be turned over to “entities” other than the town under the terms of the plan. The idea is that Plymouth Hall, which has potential as a recreational facility, would go to a nonprofit organization, like the YMCA, and Bridgeport Hall would go to a private firm that would presumably make the space available to the community for activities like the Booth Library book sale, cultural programs, and other special events when it is not using the space for other profit-making ventures. Whether these buildings fall under the control of the town or an authority would depend on their ultimate uses.

Townspeople will get to decide whether the proposed master plan meets with their approval in a vote –– probably before the fall election campaign. The makeup and powers of the Fairfield Hills Authority, however, will be decided for them. The selectmen and the Legislative Council, with the help of the state Legislature, appear to be on track to creating a governing authority for Fairfield Hills with little or no direct accountability to the public. Yes, the authority will be bound by the terms of the Fairfield Hills Master Plan, but the proposed enabling legislation for the Fairfield Hills Authority allows for the master plan to be “amended, from time to time, by the Board of Selectmen and Legislative Council of the town.” Technically, if the selectmen and the council have to take something out of the master plan to win public approval this summer, they would be able to put it back in later without a town vote under the terms of the authority’s enabling legislation. It would be politically dangerous, but completely legal.

Also, the Fairfield Hills Authority would not be elected the way the Edmond Town Hall Board of Managers is. It would be appointed by the first selectman with the approval of the Board of Selectmen. After initial appointments, the standard term on the authority would be three years. The six members of the authority would have the power to demolish, repair, rehabilitate, or construct real property, make site improvements, tear up or construct streets, and lease all or any part of the land and buildings under its control, choosing, of course, the lessees. It also will be empowered to hire whatever employees and private contractors it needs along the way. Whatever funds accrue to the town from leases would be at the disposal of the authority for its various projects.

In our system of government by checks and balances, we strive always to balance power with accountability. In the case of the emerging Fairfield Hills Authority, the scale has been tipped by too much power and too little accountability. To strike a better balance, the proposed legislation should be rewritten to provide for a locally elected Fairfield Hills Authority.