Two city firefighters have filed Freedom of Information complaints against Mayor Mark Lauretti, claiming he held an illegal meeting on Christmas Eve to talk about the fire chief’s position.
Chris Jones, a Democratic hopeful for mayor, and Mike Ullrich, the firefighter who was denied the spot as fire chief by Lauretti, filed separate complaints with the Freedom of Information commission this week.
The complaints claim that the full Board of Fire Commissioners and four assistant fire chiefs met with Lauretti at City Hall on the morning of Christmas Eve.
No agenda or minutes were filed for the meetings. The complaints claim if there was a quorum of the Board of Fire Commissioners present at the meeting, it should have been advertised and open to the public.
Because of the holiday, City Hall was closed on Christmas Eve.
Lauretti confirmed that he invited the fire officials to meet with him that day. But, he said, it wasn’t up to him to file an agenda or minutes for the Board of Fire Commissioners because he’s not on the board.
“The Board of Fire Commissioners has a responsibility to follow the regulations,” Lauretti said. “Just because I asked them to come to the meeting, doesn’t alleviate them from doing what they have to do.”
State law clearly states that the public must be notified of meetings 24 hours in advance of the meeting, minutes must be kept — and the public must be allowed to attend.
The Christmas Eve meeting fell short on every count.
Article continues after document, which includes both FOI complaints.
Background
The city’s fire commissioners have recommended Ullrich be named chief. Lauretti refuses to make the appointment, apparently due to some past conflict with Ullrich. As it stands, there is no chief of the Shelton Fire Department — and there hasn’t been since November 2010.
At the time of the Christmas Eve meeting, the fire commissioners were just beginning the process of looking for a new chief. The board knew there were two applicants for the position — Ullrich and Daryl Osiecki — but hadn’t started testing yet for the job.
The Meeting
Lauretti called the meeting for 9 a.m. on Dec. 24, 2010. The commissioners and assistant fire chiefs met in the first-floor conference room, according to Assistant Fire Chief Paul Wilson, who attended the meeting.
The Valley Independent Sentinel tried to contact the other fire commissioners and assistant fire chiefs who were at the meeting. Messages were left seeking comment.
Lauretti said he asked the fire commissioners and assistant chiefs to meet with him to outline guidelines for the chief’s role moving forward.
Wilson described the meeting as an end-of-the-year recap on the fire department.
“We were just trying to make sure we were on the same page going into the upcoming year,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t an operational meeting.”
Wilson said the assistant fire chiefs usually meet each December for that purpose.
The Dec. 24 meeting was the first time a meeting was called with the mayor and the full Board of Fire Commissioners, Wilson said.
It was also the first time the meeting was held on Christmas Eve, Wilson said.
Why Be Secret?
Ullrich and Jones believe Lauretti, the commissioners and the assistant chiefs talked about the fire chief’s position during the illegal meeting — and specifically that Lauretti said he didn’t want to appoint Ullrich or Osiecki as fire chief.
Regarding the Christmas Eve get together, “the Mayor was discussing the hiring of a full time Fire Chief and that he was not going to appoint either candidate that had applied for the position,” Jones wrote in his complaint.
Lauretti said he couldn’t remember specifics of the discussion or whether he mentioned the candidates specifically.
“I know it was about the chief’s position, and the role of the chief and the lack of authority the board was trying to impose upon the chief,” Lauretti said. “I told them I had some different ideas about how this has got to work.”
Wilson said the discussion was not exactly how Jones and Ullrich described it.
When the commissioners briefed Lauretti on the fire chief search, Lauretti said he was disappointed that more than two people didn’t apply, Wilson said.
Six Months Later
Ullrich said he found out about the Christmas Eve meeting in early June from two different people who were at the meeting.
He would not say who told him.
Ullrich wrote a letter to Mayor Lauretti on June 9, asking for minutes from the meeting.
On June 13, Lauretti responded in writing:
“There are no minutes from that meeting in this office. As a suggestion, you might check with the Office of the Board of Fire Commissioners to see if they took any minutes or notes,” the mayor wrote.
Jones filed his request for minutes with the City Clerk, who also said none were on file, according to the complaint.
Politics As Usual?
Lauretti called the FOI complaint “comical.”
“Obviously, it’s an election year and they’re looking to get an advantage one way,” Lauretti said. “This is what politics renders — FOI complaints. Character assassinations.”
Jones, who recently said he would run for mayor in the November election, said the timing of the complaint is not political.
“If I knew about this three months ago, I would have come out with this three months ago,” Jones said. “This isn’t political. This is between right and wrong.”
Lauretti Thursday again declined to explain why he didn’t want Ullrich as chief.
“I told them right from the beginning I wasn’t going to get into this thing with anybody,” Lauretti said. “I won’t have this personal discussion publicly. It is what it is.”
FOI Timing
On its surface, an unnoticed meeting of a full board or commission appears to violate the Freedom of Information Act. The FOI Act does have some exemptions, such as a chance meeting of a board, or a personnel search committee. Click here to read the full FOI act.
Typically a complaint has to be filed with the FOI Commission within 30 days of an alleged violation. But in the case of an apparent illegal meeting, such as the Christmas Eve one, the FOI act allows complaints to be filed 30 days after members of the public learned of the meeting.
“They’d have to show that they just found out,” said Thomas Hennick, the spokesperson for the Freedom of Information Commission.
Hennick said the commission has received both complaints this week.
The commission probably won’t review the complaint for several months, as they are backlogged with other complaints dating back to April, Hennick said.
Once the commission reviews the complaint, it will determine if it has jurisdiction over the matter, and if the complaint was filed within the deadline, Hennick said.
Then the commission will assign a mediator to talk with both sides, Hennick said.
