As Ansonia families sang holiday carols and welcomed the season with the lighting of the city’s Christmas tree near City Hall Nov. 30, Sandra Desrosiers was going through something much less festive down the street at the Ansonia Housing Authority Commission.
In a controversial move, the authority’s commissioners voted 3 – 2 to send Desrosiers, the authority’s executive director, packing.
The move was controversial because one commissioner was confused as to what she was voting for.
The vote was taken twice, with that commissioner first voting no, then abstaining, then voting yes to terminate the executive director’s contract.
Also, the authority’s chairman would not elaborate on his opinion of Desrosiers’ job performance, other than a generic statement, even though she gave him permission to talk about her in public.
Finally, the commission wouldn’t allow the public to speak, despite a strong show of support for the executive director in the audience — along with a petition of nearly 100 names.
Desrosiers told the Valley Indy last week she is disappointed and confused by the commission’s decision. She noted they didn’t need cause to terminate her contract since she was in her 90-day probationary period.
However, she said she filed a complaint with the state’s Freedom of Information Commission over the way the meeting was conducted.
Some members of the commission actually used the FOI Act to shield them from the public, claiming that since it was a “special” meeting of the commission public comment could not be accepted.
The Meeting
The Valley Indy did not attend the meeting but listened to an audio recording of it Friday afternoon (Dec. 7).
The effort to unload Desrosiers was led by commission chairman James J. Tyma, who repeatedly said during the meeting he didn’t think Desrosiers was a “good fit” for the housing authority.
Tyma was ultimately supported by commissioners Nancy Marini and Flora Jett, who changed her vote during the meeting.
While acknowledging his decision was neither pleasant nor easy, Tyma, in the audio recording of the meeting, said he thought it was the best thing for the Ansonia Housing Authority.
Tyma would not elaborate on his opinion, even though Desrosiers gave the commissioners permission to discuss her job evaluation in public.
“It had nothing to do with performance,” Desrosiers told the Valley Indy last week. “As a matter of fact, I was thanked for my hard work and for the strides I had made with the agency.”
In an interview Dec. 11, Tyma said the commissioners had discussed the executive director’s performance during an executive session Nov. 20. He said he could not go into details.
Desrosiers thinks that her ouster was based mainly on the fact Tyma didn’t have confidence in her ability to do the job.
The decision to terminate her contract shocked housing authority employees, residents — and at least two commissioners.
“I told them when I was leaving this was an insult to the Ansonia Housing Authority and that they ought to be ashamed of themselves,” said Debi Hanley, a senior citizen who lives in a housing authority apartment on Woodbridge Avenue and was in the audience at the Nov. 30 meeting.
“It was absolutely abhorrent, the way things were voted on. It’s a dictatorship,” said Joanne Haase, an Ansonia Housing Authority employee who also attended the meeting.
“The was a rough meeting. It wasn’t right,” said housing authority commissioner Michael Vacca.
Commissioners pointed out that Desrosiers had glowing reviews from residents, her employees and Jimmy Miller, the executive director of the New Haven Housing Authority who is now filling in as Ansonia searches for a new executive director.
Controversy
At one point during the meeting, commissioner Shaun Supp suggested that Tyma resign, since he seemed to be the only person who had a problem with Desrosiers.
Vacca kept pressing Tyma for more information about his issues with the executive director. Meanwhile, a member of the public kept asking to speak in order to support Desrosiers.
Click below to listen to the public asking to speak.
The meeting was a bureaucratic, Robert’s Rules of Order tug of war between commissioners Tyma, Supp and Vacca.
Tyma’s motion to terminate Desrosiers’ contract came at the start of the meeting, immediately after Desrosiers requested they review her performance in public.
Supp and Vacca kept trying to convince fellow commissioners to extend Desrosiers’ evaluation period.
Desrosiers repeatedly gave commissioners permission to talk about her contract out of public view, but insisted her performance as executive director be discussed in the public’s view, as is her right under state law.
Nothing in state law mandates closed-door, executive session meetings. They are options allowed under certain conditions, such as to discuss litigation, contracts, real estate deals and specific personnel.
The commissioners tied themselves into bureaucratic knots over the issue, debating whether it was possible to enter into a closed-door executive session to review the terms of Desrosiers’ employment contract — without discussing Desrosiers’ performance.
Meanwhile, members of the public kept trying to weigh in and were repeatedly shot down. Commissioners wouldn’t accept a petition signed by 94 people because they said doing so would be “a violation” of the FOI Act.
That caused a member of the audience to ask if commissioners were trying to “shaft” Desrosiers. The audio is below:
While the Ansonia Housing Authority Commission allows public comment at their regularly scheduled meetings, they didn’t do that on Nov. 30 because it was a “special” meeting. That is — it wasn’t held on the regular date.
Tyma pointed out Dec. 11 that the public would have been able to share their thoughts at the regularly scheduled Nov. 20 meeting.
Nothing in the state’s Freedom of Information Act mandates public comment at public meetings, but the audience — as evidenced by their groans on the recording of the meeting — did not think it was fair.
No. Abstain. Yes. Adjourn.
The climax of the meeting occurred when the time came to decide whether to terminate Desrosiers’ contract.
A ‘yes’ vote was a vote to terminate the contract.
Tyma voted yes.
Marini voted yes.
Jett voted no. But then brief confusion ensued, with a commissioner saying “She’s abstaining … there’s too much pressure.”
Tyma then interrupts. “She didn’t vote? She’s not going to vote?”
Vacca and Suppa then voted no.
Jett, who is 87 years old, can be heard asking, “What was the vote?”
When it appeared the vote to terminate the contract failed, applause broke out in the audience.
However, that vote was not recorded, apparently because Jett was confused.
“No, she wants to understand,” Tyma is heard saying. “I moved to terminate the contract.”
“That’s what I’m voting for, to terminate the contract,” Jett then said.
A commissioner asked the housing authority’s attorney what to do. He suggested a “re-vote.”
A second vote was taken.
Tyma and Marini voted yes.
This time Jett voted yes. “I vote to terminate,” she said.
Vacca and Supp voted no.
Tyma voted to adjourn the meeting after a member of the public asked if she could speak.
The audio from the vote is posted below.
Reaction
John Izzo, a landlord to several Ansonia Housing Authority tenants, said he attended the Nov. 30 meeting expecting to congratulate the commissioners for hiring a professional like Desrosiers.
That’s not the way it played out.
“I was extremely dismayed to walk into the meeting and see within five minutes of the start of the meeting the chairman was calling for a motion to terminate,” Izzo said. “The agenda clearly called for public comment, but when I asked for the opportunity to be heard, along with other residents and staff, the chairman said he would not be taking public comment.”
In an interview last week Vacca said he expected the meeting to be an evaluation of Desrosiers’ performance as executive director.
“There was no evaluation. That never happened,” he said.
Several residents and housing authority employees questioned whether Tyma’s statements essentially convinced Jett to change her vote.
“When you get an old woman to change her vote, that is not right,” Hanley said.
Jett declined to explain why she ultimately voted to terminate Desrosiers’ contract. She acknowledged being confused as to what she was voting on — but said Tyma didn’t influence her.
“He didn’t convince me. No. That was wrong information. So much was going on, sometimes you get confused with this conversation and that conversation, but I got my thoughts together. He didn’t concern me. I’m a grown woman. Mr. Tyma can’t tell me what to do,” she said.
Vacca said he was not comfortable with the commission’s double vote — and Tyma’s interaction with Jett.
“Do I have a problem with that? Yes, I have a problem with that,” he said.
Tyma told the Valley Indy he asked for a second vote for clarification because there was so much noise in the room.
Hanley said residents are frustrated because the housing authority has been run poorly for years.
The previous executive director violated federal housing guidelines because his family collected rent from Section 8 tenants while he was in charge of the authority.
Hanley uses a walker. She said she pleaded for years to get the housing authority to install a ramp to no avail — yet Desrosiers was able to get it done in just 90 days.
Izzo said he has worked closely with the staff at the authority for 15 years and that Desrosiers brought expertise and efficiencies to the organization that had previously been lacking.
“When she came in I noticed a new culture. Procedures were being followed and required forms and reports were being addressed in a timely manner,” Izzo said.
Desrosiers isn’t happy to be out of work just before the holidays, particularly because she came to Ansonia excited at the prospect of turning around a problematic housing authority.
Ultimately, she said Tyma simply out-maneuvered her, authority employees — and residents.
“It was a chess match and he played his game well. I just didn’t understand what was happening until I looked back over the weekend and thought ‘What happened?’ I was working hard. I was making a difference and people were getting along well,” she said.
