The Three Million Dollar Parking Lot

To the Editor:

The bizarre case of the $3 million Fairfield Hills parking lot provides an example of the new leadership IPN offers Newtown, while illustrating serious problems with the powers of the Fairfield Hills Authority and the complicity of the Old Guard on the Board of Selectmen, Legislative Council and Board of Finance in allowing such a state of affairs to exist. 

The parking lot is best known as the locus of the prevailing wage fiasco, where it was erroneously claimed that a parking lot needed for numerous town facilities was nevertheless a private one and thus exempt from that law.  But the financing of the project is perhaps even more remarkable. 

Having signed a lease agreement with the Newtown Youth Academy (NYA) in 2007 obligating the town to provide parking by November, 2008, the authority had a problem: no extra money and very little time.  This was both a technical issue and a political embarrassment.  So rather than following the charter-mandated procedure requiring Board of Finance review and a town meeting to authorize a bond issue, the Old Guard hit on a novel solution: they amended the lease to have NYA build the parking lot using private financing, but with the town reimbursing their loan payments. 

Concerned about the legality of such a move, the town attorney requested a special letter from our auditors characterizing the payments as “operational.”  Nevertheless, the finance director made it clear he would treat it as debt service.  All agreed that it would make sense to issue bonds in due course to refinance the obligation at the lower rates the town receives.  The final legal tap dance involved a “non-appropriations” clause stating that the town had not made a binding commitment.  Thus $3 million was borrowed at six percent interest without the consent of the Legislative Council or Board of Finance, let alone a town meeting at which the voters could have a say.

IPN, along with many private taxpayers, immediately cried foul in letters to The Bee.  In light of this end run around, the voters and their elected officials, Po Murray and Gary Davis requested that the Legislative Council form a subcommittee to review the FFHA arrangement.  In an October 2008 vote, only Chris Lyddy assented, while the remaining council members (including three current Board of Selectmen candidates) insisted that everything was fine. 

The Board of Finance remained mum until March of 2009, when the new debt service expense of $259,750 — including significantly more interest than the town would have paid had it borrowed the money directly — finally appeared in the proposed 2009–2010 budget.  Two members asked the first selectman how this could have happened without a BOF review.  He had no answer, but the board did not pursue it further.

Such shenanigans, which typify the Old Guard’s approach to government, must end.  We need careful planning and town-wide consensus on the issues we face. IPN has the ideas and the determination to lead the way.  For information, visit www.independentpartyofnewtown.com .

William McNerney

IPN Candidate for Board of Finance

20 Fawnwood Road, Sandy Hook                        September 16, 2009