SEYMOUR – Members of the Seymour Board of Ethics met in executive session Wednesday (Aug. 12) to discuss a complaint. The board took no action and is expected to resume its discussion at a date to be determined.
Town officials, citing the confidentiality rules outlined in the town charter, are not sharing the nature of the complaint.
However, First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis said that in early May, Red Clover Farms owner Kim Dulka Warner submitted an ethics complaint in a sealed manila envelope to her office at town hall.
“Kim Dulka came to my office and handed me an envelope, and she stated it was an ethics complaint,” Drugonis told the Valley Indy Wednesday (Aug. 12). “I immediately called our town attorney and told him we received an ethics complaint. The attorney instructed me not to open the envelope and to bring it to the town clerk so it could be stamped and dated.”
Dulka Warner declined to comment on this story.
Drugonis is not on the board of ethics.
Background
Dulka Warner’s Red Clover Farms at 174 S. Benham Road received a cease and desist from the Seymour zoning enforcement officer in April.
The town said the farm was engaging in commercial activity not allowed in a residential zone.
Those activities include open mics, live music, crafts, and food truck events.
Dulka Warner and her supporters have said the issue is that her neighbors, Al and Kristen Bruno, have been complaining about her for years.
Al Bruno is a member of the Seymour Board of Selectpersons and Kristen Bruno is on the Seymour Board of Education.
The Brunos filed a complaint against the farm four days prior to the issuance of the cease and desist.
Al Bruno has been accused on social media of using his influence as a town official to get the farm into trouble. However, he spoke at a meeting in May and said he’s an abutting property owner simply trying to get the farm to follow the land use rules. Click here to watch Dulka Warner’s rebuttal.
Al Bruno is also a member of the Seymour Board of Ethics, though he was not seated nor in attendance during Wednesday’s closed-door hearing.
Scroll down to the bottom of this story for links to seven previous Valley Indy stories on the issue.
The Ethics Board Meeting
The ethics board members in attendance Wednesday were Stephan Behuniak, Tom LaPaglia, Kathie Vrlik, and three newly seated alternates, Rob VanEgghan, Alice Levey, and Cindy Dion.
Dulka Warner attended the meeting.
Behuniak, the board’s chairman, said the meeting started in public and members voted to go into executive session, a type of meeting closed to the public.
After the executive session ended, the board reconvened in public and ended the meeting. Behuniak said the group will meet again, but a date had not been finalized as of Aug. 13.
Drugonis said she did not attend the ethics board meeting.
She said the town hired Jeffrey Donofrio, an attorney with Ciulla & Donofrio, LLP, based in North Haven, to represent and guide the board of ethics through the process. The Town of Seymour is paying the firm $340 per hour, Drugonis said.
“Our attorney told us we had to get outside counsel involved because (our attorney) has to represent the town,” Drugonis said.
The ethics board first convened on July 14, according to Drugonis. There are no meeting minutes posted on the town’s website. The agenda called for an “executive session with legal counsel to discuss complaint #2026-01,” which was the same complaint number discussed this week.
The Procedure
The Seymour Board of Ethics’ job is to determine whether the town’s ethics policy has been violated. Specifically, the board is “empowered to investigate allegations of unethical conduct, corrupting influence or activities levied against any municipal official, officer or employee,” according to the Seymour Town Charter.
The meetings are open to the public, but the board can vote to go into executive session after the meeting starts.
When a complaint is received, the members of the board of ethics meet to determine whether there’s enough evidence to warrant an investigation. The goal of the initial investigation is to determine whether there is probable cause to believe a violation happened.
If probable cause is found, the board holds hearings – which can be held in private, unless the person or group accused says otherwise – to determine whether a violation happened. If probable cause is found, the board must notify the public of the finding, according to the town charter.
The ethics board eventually reports to the Board of Selectpersons as to whether the town’s ethics policy was violated. They can also recommend a punishment to the Selectpersons, if a violation is determined.
Click here to read the ethics policy and procedures from the town charter.
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