To the Editor:

Why are some routine functions of some town departments performed only at the will of the first selectman?

When a complaint was made to Land Use recently about violations in my neighborhood, a town employee told the caller he would check into it and call her back. He never did.

Several of my neighbors and I then sent a letter to Land Use and the first selectman. After a month went by with no response, I called Land Use and was told that it had three months by state statute to respond to our complaints and that I would get a letter before then giving us an update. Over two more months went by with no response and no letter before I discovered that there is no such statute. I then called the first selectman and she had the head of Land Use call me — ten minutes later!

Some of my neighbors and I have had our properties damaged by town snow plow operators. After the Highway Department ignored our requests for repairs — for two years in one instance — we called the first selectman and the damages were repaired. Once, just two days later.

Before you conclude from the examples that our first selectman is an effective manager consider this. We do not elect first selectmen to run the day-to-day operations of town departments. We pay employees in those departments to do that. We elect first selectmen to make sure town departments are responsive to residents and perform their functions fairly and efficiently. Otherwise, it appears that whether a routine complaint is addressed is up to the discretion of the first selectman and that town departments work for her and not for residents.

But that is exactly who town departments work for, the first selectman, not residents. We elected the first selectman, not the heads of town departments, who report to her, not to us. If town employees lie, are surly, ignore complaints, or do not do what they say they are going to do, it is the fault of the first selectman. That the first selectman has to call a department head to have a routine problem taken care of is actually a sign of the first selectman’s poor management skills.

That is unless you think the first job of the first selectman is to get reelected. Then her management skills are just fine. For her. Who benefits when a town department ignores a resident’s complaint? Surely not the resident. The first selectman does. It may not be what she intends, but she benefits at election time, when the good will she creates by getting routine problems taken care of for residents pays off at the polls. Some town departments function, in effect, as tools of the first selectman’s ongoing reelection campaign.

Perhaps voters would like to hear from the first selectman what specific changes she would make to improve the responsiveness of town departments to their routine concerns.

Glen Swanson

9 Maplewood Trail, Sandy Hook               June 15, 2015