Derby Police Department Chief Scott Todd.
DERBY – The city’s elusive “capital planning commission” will start meeting regularly this year, according to statements made by elected officials last week.
Capital projects refer to expensive government items – fire trucks, police cars, major building repairs, expensive equipment, things of that nature.
According to the Derby City Charter, members of the commission are supposed to meet with government department heads and go over capital requests. The commission is supposed to recommend a five-year capital plan to the Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen.
In reality the commission doesn’t follow the Charter word-for-word. For the last decade or so, the commission – when it met – compiled requests from the departments, and prioritized them in a recommended list given to the city’s tax board.
However, in Derby the capital planning commission hasn’t met on a regular basis in years.
Who to blame for that depends on who you ask.
The commission was last scheduled to meet on Sept. 22, 2022, according to the City of Derby’s website. That would have been its first meeting since January 2021.
However, only three Republicans (and no Democrats) showed up for the September meeting, so the meeting lacked a quorum and couldn’t act.
Then Mayor Rich Dziekan said the lack of Democrats was a political attempt to slow down progress. Democrats said they didn’t receive enough notice to attend.
David Lenart, then the Derby Fire Department Chief, called the absence of members a “disgrace.”
He said at the time that the fire department has an aging fleet of fire trucks that need to be replaced. Current Derby Fire Commissioner Gary Parker said the same in a recent Valley Indy interview.
The fire department isn’t the only department with a list of expensive needs.
At an Aldermanic subcommittee meeting last week, Derby Police Chief Scott Todd noted the city usually purchased two new police vehicles a year so the department could maintain a healthy fleet.
However the police department went through two budget cycles with no new vehicles. Chief Todd noted a lieutenant’s vehicle has over 100,000 miles. Another vehicle in the fleet needs $4,500 in repairs.
That’s due, in part, because of a lack of capital planning and a commission to manage such expenses..
Derby City/Town Clerk Marc Garofalo, a former Derby mayor, suggested the new capital planning commission meet on a scheduled basis.
A review of the city’s website shows the commission previously had no set schedule.
Assuming the city’s website is accurate, the commission did not meet in 2022 or 2023. It had just two meetings in 2021, but had six in 2020 and four in 2019.
Members of the Derby Capital Planning Commission are supposed to be appointed by the mayor and approved by the Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen.
“What we would like is a comprehensive list of all the requests from all of the departments so that we can see them, get them into a prioritization, see what is ARPA (federal grant) eligible, what can we use the capital funds for, what do we need to go out and get grant funding for?” Alderwoman Sarah Widomski said during an Aldermanic subcommittee meeting on Jan. 25.
Mayor Joseph DiMartino promised to convene a capital planning meeting as soon as possible.
