Republican First Selectman Pat Llodra, Town Finance Director Robert Tait, and Republican Legislative Council Chair Mary Ann Jacob all responded to claims made in a recent Democratic Town Committee position paper report.

In that position paper, Democrats made two statements in that elicited clarification or rebuttal from the local officials. Mrs Llodra is running for reelection unopposed, and Ms Jacob is an incumbent candidate for Council District 2.

Mr Tait is a salaried town staffer, and is not elected to his post.

In their paper, local Democrats asserted a number of points including an overarching concern that local political boards and commissions are out of balance, with a large majority of Republicans versus Democrats either elected or appointed to serve.

That point was rebutted by a GOP position paper that appeared in the same edition. According to that release, of the 74 elected officials in Newtown, 58 percent are Republicans, 35 percent are Democrats and seven percent make up the balance.

In addition, 150 appointed officials serve in some capacity on behalf of Newtown residents with Republicans representing 46 percent, Democrats 37 percent, with a balance of 16 percent who are either unaffiliated or registered with a minor party.

Another point in the Democrat’s position paper suggests that the town’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan or CIP proposed by the current administration is requesting: “Eighty-two percent of debt service [going] to the town and only 18 percent to education, reversing the past 20 years, with Democratic Party balance, when 62 percent of debt service went to education.”

According to documentation provided by the first selectman and confirmed by the finance director, that ratio comes from a proposed and yet-to-be approved capital plan that Mrs Llodra contends has a number of municipal placeholders tied to projects that may or may not move forward depending on the outcome of town and school facilities studies and other considerations.

Mr Tait said the roughly 80/20 ratio of debt service could occur if all projects are approved and bonded at the projected allocation in the CIP. He said that 20 percent request, however, represents a snapshot in time and reflects the estimated costs and timelines of projects most recently requested by the Board of Education.

“When we do the annual prioritizing for the CIP, it represents a five-year period, but those requests in the CIP ebb and flow depending on specific needs of the school district or the community,” he said.

Looking at a 25-year period that includes the proposed future five-year capital proposals, and the past 20 years of actual capital spending, the finance director calculated that 51 percent of bonding was designated for school needs and 49 percent for all other municipal projects.

Referring to the Democrats’ statement, Mr Tait said, “They are ignoring the CIP process, which selects future capital projects that are prioritized without regard for town function — there is no choosing based on [an equalized] percentage split.”

For example, the five-year CIP approved for 2008 to 2012 devoted 79 percent of capital bonding to school requests versus the town’s 21 percent — not including capital road spending, which was part of the Public Works Department’s operational expenses.

During that period, school bonding provided underwriting for projects including the Newtown High School addition, as well as projects at the middle school, Sandy Hook, Hawley, and Middle Gate, he said.

In a review of the 2009–2013 CIP, Mr Tait said the plan similarly reserved 75 percent of the bonding requests for school district projects; while in the 2010–2015 CIP, the ratio of school bonding reverts to a more equalized 56 percent.

‘Just No Merit’

, Mrs Llodra said “There is just no merit” to the Democrats’ assertions.In a letter to The Bee this week

“Annual debt service payments are a result of bonds issued over a long period of time, typically 20 years,” Mrs Llodra wrote. “Our history for capital debt shows that we have a 62 percent investment in schools and a 38 percent investment in other town functions. 

“Further, our debt service payment this year, fiscal 2016, is more than $10 million, 52 percent of which is related to school projects and 48 percent for town projects. Detail shows that $5,308,269 is for previously bonded school projects at Hawley, Newtown High School, Head O’ Meadow, the middle school, and Reed,” the first selectman continued.

“And $4,798,097 is for previously bonded town projects including fire trucks, police radios, animal shelter, park improvements, open space, Fairfield Hills, water mains, and bridge replacement,” she added. “To isolate one Capital Improvement Plan, such as the one under review right now by the Board of Finance, and consider its debt load as separate from all the other debt we owe is a disservice to every taxpayer in Newtown. No one CIP stands alone. When we begin to talk and think in terms of winners and loser for our capital investments, then we all lose.”

Another point in the Democrat’s position paper attempts to take Ms Jacob and outgoing Board of Finance Chairman John Kortze to task for a brief meeting they had with Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr, regarding the highly emotional issue of evaluating whether to close the Hawley School in the wake of a significant drop of more than 1,000 students across the district in recent years.

The Democrat’s statement reads:

“The Republican chairs of the Legislative Council and the Board of Finance, on the day of the Board of Education vote to close Hawley School, met with [School Superintendent] Dr Erardi and represented that they had canvassed their boards privately and told him it was okay to postpone the school closing business. The chair of the Board of Education was invited to the meeting by Dr Erardi but the Republicans would not let him join the meeting.”

Ms Jacob responded that the entire statement is fraught with inaccuracies beginning with the initial statement. She said the meeting between her, Mr Kortze, and the superintendent occurred on Monday June 22, two days before the school board meeting that is referenced.

Responding to a request earlier this week for his perspective, Dr Erardi affirmed that fact to The Bee saying, “John [Kortze] and Mary Ann [Jacob] requested to meet with me on a given Monday in June before the Board of Education’s meeting [6/24] to see if they could offer any support moving forward... it really was that simple.”

Rosenthal Statement

Ms Jacob said that in mid-June, she became concerned about a report in The Bee quoting former first selectman and currently unopposed Board of Selectman candidate Herb Rosenthal saying: “A number of [local Democrats] are also concerned that the superintendent of schools and Board of Education members are feeling pressure from the Board of Finance and Republican leadership that unless they make a decision now to close a school, their budget will be cut by the amount of the purported savings.”

Upon reading that report, Ms Jacob said she reached all but two members of the council — Democrats Eva Bermudez and Daniel Amaral — asking each member if they were responsible for making any statements that could be construed as pressuring the superintendent, and all responded no.

Ms Jacob then said she reminded each council member that it would be highly inappropriate to assert themselves into any conversation regarding Hawley School talks and each council member she contacted said they understood and would honor that agreement.

She confirmed that she requested Mr Kortze to attend the June 22 meeting as well, and that apparently Dr Erardi mentioned the meeting to school board Chairman Keith Alexander — who is a Republican.

“I didn’t invite Keith because that would be a perfect example of exerting political pressure, and I intentionally did not want to put him in that awkward position,” Ms Jacob said. “So in speaking to Dr Erardi, we all agreed there was no political pressure, that asserting any would be inappropriate and that we would stay out of it.”

At that point, Ms Jacob said the door opened and Mr Alexander appeared, so Ms Jacob said she asked him to wait for a few more moments and the meeting quickly wrapped up.

“I never spoke to Keith; apparently Dr Erardi let Keith know about the meeting and he just showed up,” she said, adding that she and Mr Kortze departed with a commitment that the council and finance board would “do our best to support whatever the outcome [on the Hawley decision] would be.”

Regarding the Democrats’ characterization of the meeting, Ms Jacob said, “What really happened is almost exactly the opposite of what their release says. The irony is, I was attempting to reinforce that we all wanted to stay out of it, and that these statements are being put forth by people who weren’t even there.”

Contacted and presented with this information, Mr Rosenthal said that the DTC’s position then and now resulted from concerns expressed by Democratic school board members Michelle Ku and John Vouros and Republican member Laura Roche, and that he has no reason to not believe them.

“I’ve not learned anything that would change my position,” Mr Rosenthal said.