The majority of the members of the Derby Charter Revision Commission support deleting a rule that prohibits city employees from being elected or appointed to city boards or commissions.
As it stands, city employees can run and be elected to public office, but the Derby City Charter requires them to get a waiver from the Board of Aldermen before they can serve.
The vote on the waiver must be unanimous.
The same applies to city employees who are appointed to positions, whether it’s a coaching job or serving as a mayor’s appointee.
It’s a check on Derby government that dates back to about 1953.
Removing it was one of several issues discussed June 27 during a charter revision commission meeting in Derby City Hall.
Derby Charter What?
The Derby Charter is a customized set of written rules regulating Derby government.
The Derby Charter Revision Commission was formed earlier this year to examine the Derby City Charter and suggest changes to the Derby Board of Aldermen.
The charter revision commission has been meeting twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Click here for meeting agendas and minutes.
The commission has until the end of July to make recommendations to the Aldermen.
The revision process mandates that any changes must be approved by Derby voters through a citywide referendum.
That public vote could be held in November.
The Waiver
Several members of the current Board of Aldermen — including Joe DiMartino, Barbara DeGennaro, Stephen Iacuone, Thomas Donofrio and Aldermanic President Carmen DiCenso — believe the waiver requirement should be removed from the City Charter, or at least modified.
Those who want to do away with the waiver said that if voters elected municipal employees, so be it. The will of the people should be followed.
DiMartino, Donofrio, and Iacuone are city employees.
Aldermen DiCenso, DiMartino and Iacuone have said the waiver requirement potentially gives too much power to one Alderman.
One Alderman with a grudge can derail the vote of the people, they’ve said.
And DeGennaro, speaking from the audience at the June 27 charter revision meeting, indicated the waiver provision in the charter has been abused in the past.
She told the commission that in the late 1990s she was appointed Derby Fire Commissioner. However, some people within the fire department did not want her to get the appointment.
DeGennaro had to get a waiver from the Board of Aldermen to become fire commissioner because she was a Derby High School pom-pom coach at the time.
Surprisingly, her waiver request didn’t receive the required unanimous vote.
DeGennaro appeared at an Aldermen meeting again — this time with high school girls from her squad who wanted to know why she was denied her appointment as fire commissioner.
The Alderman granted the waiver, allowing her to become the first female fire commissioner in Derby’s history.
DiMartino said when he was campaigning door-to-door in the Second Ward while running for Alderman, he talked to hundreds of voters. They knew he was an employee of the city. A waiver isn’t needed.
“I’m against the waivers. The citizens of Derby vote for the elected officials,” DiMartino said. “I’m a city employee. I went door to door in the second ward. They know I’m a city employee. They still voted me in.”
During the June 27 meeting, Thomas Lionetti, a resident of Derby for 64 years, urged the commission to delete the section banning public employees from serving on boards unless they receive a waiver.
“I don’t think you should have to go to the Board of Aldermen for approval, never mind the unanimous vote,” Lionetti said.
Adam Pacheco seemed to summarize the thoughts of several members of the Charter Revision Commission late in the meeting.
“The city should not be in the voting booth with the individual,” Pacheco said.
Why Does It Exist?
Any city employee running for public office has been subject to the waiver in Derby for 60 years. It was born out of a time when Derby elected officials could profit from public service.
The history of the requirement isn’t crystal clear, at least in Evening Sentinel articles from the 1950s.
The Freedom of Information Act and similar sunshine laws didn’t exist back then, so the first discussions about the waiver in the 1950s were held in backrooms at Derby City Hall away from the prying eyes of the public.
But the waiver was controversial, according to 1953 newspaper reports at the time, because several Derby government officials had service contracts with Derby government back then.
- An Alderman at the time supplied the city with gasoline.
- A member of the Board of Education purchased groceries for a city department from her family’s store.
- A member of the tax board was a plumber who did business with the city.
According to the Evening Sentinel, Alderman Michael V. Vellaco described his fellow elected officials as “leeches who have been on the gravy train too many years.”
Conflicts?
Times have changed since the 1950s.
However, Derby Second Ward Aldermen Art Gerckens has been questioning the influence of city employees on city government.
Meanwhile, the Derby Board of Education generated headlines last year by violating their own written rules on hiring family members.
Gerckens’ questions caused the Aldermen to ask their attorney to research the city government’s policies on conflicts of interest. The report isn’t finished.
Gerckens has angered both Republicans and Democrats by questioning whether city employees who were elected to the Board of Aldermen and the tax board should be allowed to participate in discussions about the departments in which they’re employed.
He has specifically questioned the role Alderman Stephen Iacuone plays in matters concerning the Derby Water Pollution Control Authority, where he works.
The WPCA maintains the city’s sewer system and voters approved more than $30 million in repairs two years ago. The WPCA has also gotten into hot water with state and federal environmental officials over the operation of the city’s sewage treatment plant.
In addition, the city has been debating for years whether to regionalize its WPCA.
Iacuone is a key player when the Aldermen discuss the WPCA’s many issues. Gerckens has questioned whether it’s in the public’s interest for one person to be wearing so many hats.
The Valley Indy interviewed Gerckens at length about his views during a podcast in early July. It is posted below.
Gerckens also caused a stir when he indicated he regretted granting waivers to several city employees who had been elected to public office at the start of Mayor Anita Dugatto’s second term.
Earlier this year Joe DiMartino, a Democratic Second Ward Alderman with Gerckens, suggested the waiver provision be taken out of the city charter.
Derby’s waiver requirement is somewhat unusual, but preventing government employees from straddling both sides of the fence is not.
The idea, generally, is to prevent your town’s government from becoming an exclusive club — the “old boys network.”
In neighboring Seymour, Rory Burke, an employee of the town, was elected last year to the planning and zoning commission.
However, local leaders realized Burke could not work for the government and be an elected official, so Burke had to chose between his job or the elected position.
He chose to give up the seat on the commission.
In Seymour, town employees cannot work for the town and serve on the Board of Selectmen, the finance board, or the planning and zoning commission.
In Bridgeport, detractors say city Democrats have a vice-like grip on what happens in government because the city employees are the political power brokers. In a 2015 syndicated column, Journal Inquirer managing editor Chris Powell wrote a scathing indictment on local governments dominated by government workers and their families.
Additional reporting by Carl Jordan Castro.
