Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti put the city’s Economic Development Director on leave Monday (March 3) for unspecified “issues related to his employment.”
The mayor said he would make an announcement after meeting Tuesday afternoon with the economic development director, Peter Kelly.
Kelly declined to comment after the meeting Tuesday, but a lawyer he’s retained said that if the mayor wants Kelly out of City Hall, he’ll have to say why publicly.
“They’re going to have to have a hearing, a legitimate hearing with the charges placed up against him and so forth, and go from there,” the lawyer, Jack Androski, said.
Androski declined to comment on the matter further.
Corporation Counsel John Marini said Tuesday the issue was a personnel matter and declined to be more specific.
Sources told the Valley Indy the mayor wants Kelly to be more aggressive, and that the two do not see eye-to-eye on how to attract new businesses to the city.
The news comes after a week of grumbling from within Ansonia City Hall about the direction of economic development.
Last week, Vinnie Scarlata, chairman of the Ansonia Economic Development Commission, threatened to resign from the volunteer position during a meeting in City Hall with the mayor and several city officials.
Scarlata, a Republican who had applied to be economic development director under former Democratic Mayor James Della Volpe’s administration, said Monday he has grown frustrated with a lack of progress on the economic development front.
He said he could no longer dedicate so much time to economic development matters unless the city offers him a job.
While Scarlata told the mayor and others he quit, he has not submitted a letter of resignation to the Town Clerk’s office.
“I just had to walk away,” Scarlata said Monday.
Economic development, along with lowering taxes, was a cornerstone of Cassetti’s campaign for mayor.
During that campaign, the Republicans criticized Della Volpe’s administration and city Democrats for not doing enough to expand the city’s grand list during their time in control of the city.
It took Ansonia government 18 months to hire an economic development director after the previous director, Claude Perry, died in September 2012.
Kelly was hired for the $58,000-per-year post last summer after a committee selected him from a pool of about 40 applicants.
On Tuesday his duties were being handled by Chris Tymniak, the mayor’s chief administrative officer, and Sheila O’Malley, the city’s grant writer.
Before coming to Ansonia late last year, O’Malley was Derby’s economic development director under Republican Mayor Anthony Staffieri.
Kelly’s first day on the job was Sept. 3, and he has a two-year employment contract with the city, according to Ansonia’s corporation counsel.
Former Mayor Della Volpe called Kelly a “superstar” during a mayoral debate in October.
In an interview with the Valley Indy in October, Kelly, the former economic development director in the city of Gallup, N.M., said that building a vibrant, business-friendly community was a process that would take decades.
