Wikimedia Commons
Derby City Hall (Wikimedia Commons Photo)
DERBY – The mayor’s chief of staff said on Monday that the chairman of the city’s tax board is “going rogue” by scheduling a meeting last week without the mayor’s involvement.
“The mayor is the one who schedules meetings. The chairman is not the one who schedules meetings. If something needs to be put on the agenda, it goes through the mayor’s office,” Walt Mayhew, Mayor Rich Dziekan’s chief of staff, said.
However, Roberto Santos, the chairman of the tax board, said the mayor is allowing Mayhew to control and politicize the Derby budget process.
Santos said Mayhew is controlling the finance department, has refused to share documents from the finance office with elected officials, and has canceled the last two tax board meetings even though its members wanted to meet.
“Walter has hijacked the budget and wants to control everything,” Santos said. “There are supposed to be checks and balances. I refuse to be his puppet.”
The remarks from Mayhew and Santos came after The Valley Indy published a story last week on the proposed Derby school budget.
In that story, Derby school board chairman Jim Gildea told The Valley Indy school officials would present their budget to the tax board on Tuesday (Feb. 27).
However, Mayhew said only Mayor Dziekan can schedule and write an agenda for meetings of the tax board (formally called the Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation).
On Monday, Mayhew told The Valley Indy he was not sure it was happening because there was “nothing from a finance office point of view that needs to be on the meeting.”
Mayor Dziekan then canceled the meeting at 3:42 p.m. Monday.
Santos pointed out Tuesday’s meeting had been scheduled in advance and should have been allowed to proceed. Santos said the administration is abusing its authority by not allowing an elected board to speak about Derby finances in public.
Mayhew put the blame for any confusion on Santos, a Democrat. Dziekan is a Republican.
Mayhew said Santos won’t work with the mayor to schedule meetings. Santos said he’s reached out twice to schedule meetings with the mayor.
Mayhew said the process in place was used last year when Jeff Polis was the tax board chairman. He later resigned and the board elected Santos chairman.
“We worked great with Polis. Polis understood how it all worked,” Mayhew said. “This guy (Santos) doesn’t follow any of the rules.”
Santos said Polis was a Republican and Mayhew seems to only get along with Republicans (note: Polis was not registered to a party but was endorsed by the Republican Town Committee and ran on the Republican ticket under Dziekan).
The mayor also canceled a tax board meeting on Feb. 21. Mayhew said the Feb. 21 meeting had not been authorized by the mayor.
“There was no last meeting. I don’t know where that came from. There was no meeting scheduled, at least not one that the mayor called,” Mayhew said.
The tax board is an 11-member elected body (correction: 10) with six Republicans and four Democrats.
There has been tension between some tax board members and the mayor’s office during the last two budget cycles.
The Derby Charter – the official blueprint for Derby government – states that each board and department in the city is supposed to submit budget requests to the tax board and the mayor by Feb. 1.
A charter change approved by voters a few years ago added language saying the mayor must present a budget to the tax board by March 1.
Santos said the tax board did not receive all budget requests by Feb. 1, and that the mayor’s office and the finance office refused to share budget documents with them.
Mayhew said the mayor told department heads to send copies of budget requests to the tax board.
Mayhew said it’s not the mayor’s job to make sure the department heads actually send the information.
Mayhew said he and the finance department haven’t shared the mayor’s version of the budget with members of the tax board or the public because they are still working on it.
Mayhew said the mayor will present his budget to the tax board on March 7. Mayhew said the process used by the city last year created a budget that kept taxes stable and was delivered on time. He said it makes more sense to wait until the mayor presents a budget.
The process currently happening in Derby is different from other budget cycles in the city that took place between 2009 and 2021. During that 12-year stretch, the tax board reviewed budget requests, the board called meetings, and the mayors played a passive role. The city’s finance director (a position currently vacant, but that’s another story) and the city treasurer played larger roles than the mayor.
When Dziekan hired Mayhew as chief of staff in January 2022, the administration changed gears, saying the city government had not been conducting itself to the letter of the Derby Charter.
The administration was backed by the opinion of corporation counsel Vin Marino.
Dziekan and Mayhew said the informal process was being used by Derby Democrats to stifle any Dziekan administration progress. The Democrats said the Dziekan administration, once Mayhew was hired, became control freaks always looking to argue.
Political fighting has picked up substantially, with each side blaming the other for the fighting.
The bureaucratic disagreements and dysfunction within Derby government are also apparent in emails leaked to The Valley Indy.
The email chains show the difference in opinion over the budget process – and come very close to violating the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
By law, elected officials on a given board or commission can’t communicate with each other all at once because doing so is considered a meeting – which means public notice has to be given and an agenda has to be posted.
The goal is to prevent public groups from conducting the public’s business in private. There is wiggle room for things such as asking when people are available.
Santos sent an email Jan. 14 seeking feedback from all members of the tax board on a letter he drafted to department heads in Derby. That’s a no-no.
During a presentation in 2021 about open government to the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, members were advised not to send emails to a whole board or quorum, because such “polling” could constitute a meeting.
The presentation, a PDF of which is available here, was given by Mark J. Sommaruga, an attorney with Pullman & Comely, and Thomas Hennick, the public education officer for the Freedom of Information Commission.
An image from the presentation dealing with emails is embedded below.
Hennick specifically advised elected officials not to hit “reply all” if they receive such communication because of the potential violation of FOI rules.
Santos told The Valley Indy on Tuesday he stopped using email in that manner after learning it was problematic.
Mayhew and Santos both addressed a quorum of the tax board (in addition to the mayor, the assistant finance director, and the city lawyer) in emails on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10.
The emails to the tax board members are also addressed to the personal emails of the elected officials, which could subject their personal emails to public information requests, according to state law.
The manner in which elected officials in Derby are using email could be because they are not familiar with the FOI Act.
Back in 2019, The Valley Indy was on its way to winning a FOI complaint against Derby for violating the FOI Act.
The Valley Indy agreed to drop the complaint after the city promised to:
“Prepare and produce a written policy on FOIA responses to ensure timely responses in the future”
Schedule a FOI seminar in the summer of 2019 and “compel the attendance of staff”
The Dziekan administration did not follow through on either promise.
Mayhew said the city is now working with lawyer John Marini (his employer is the city’s corporation counsel) to have the FOI Commission conduct a training session for Derby officials.
