Letter To The Editor: Slip-Shod Work

To the Editor:

In response to Mr. Baldwin’s letter criticizing officials from the Town he is supposed to represent:

First, the fact that the “Town” Attorney wrote this inaccurate attack piece is proof positive that the Town lacks impartial counsel. Until we change that, we will all continue to pay for slip-shod work that subordinates all interests to the First Selectperson’s.

Second, what Mr. Baldwin characterizes as a “negotiation” was actually a very long, grueling, 14-hour process of identifying and correcting literally dozens of technical and substantive errors in the “redline” draft that our Town paid him and consulting Attorney Mednick many thousands of dollars to produce. The “redline” draft submitted to the Board of Selectmen in June was supposed to highlight all changes from the original document that the CRC had approved. Instead, it was riddled with errors and omissions, including faulty cross-references and significant changes that were either missing or that had not yet been voted on by the CRC. To characterize those 14 hours of hard work over a holiday weekend as anything other than a good faith effort to try to clean up the “redline” document is disingenuous at best.

Third, I was not party to any conversation with Mr. Baldwin that could be construed as a promise that if he agreed to make certain changes, Democrats “would support the proposed charter revision.” Backroom deals necessarily run counter to the public’s best interests, and it is shocking that the “Town” Attorney suggests such backroom deals would be acceptable. That Mr. Baldwin thinks backroom deals were even within the realm of possibility here calls into question his understanding of “transparency” and his understanding of his own role as Town Attorney and the ethical and professional standards that should guide that role.

The bottom line remains the same: Charter revision in Fairfield was a poorly run process that resulted in bad changes and a bad ballot question that bundles all of the proposed changes together and thereby denies voters their right to choose. For all of these reasons, voters should reject the ballot question and “Vote NO.”

Representative Jill Vergara
Fairfield RTM, District 7