Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti downplayed the notion of a rift between his administration and the city’s Water Pollution Control Authority despite the WPCA chairman saying the mayor tried to make him hire a politically connected Trumbull lawyer.
The dispute came to a head last week at the WPCA’s monthly meeting, during which Alderman Charles Stowe, who is also a member of the WPCA, and the WPCA Chairman, Nunzio Parente, argued over whether to hire the lawyer, Joseph Coppola, for about 10 minutes.
Coppola, the corporation counsel for the City of Derby under the administration of former Mayor Anthony Staffieri, is already handling some matters for the WPCA on an “interim” basis, according to minutes of the authority’s July 7 meeting.
According to the minutes, Cassetti introduced Coppola to the WPCA at the beginning of the July meeting “and said that he is very qualified to act as the WPCA attorney.”
But the WPCA didn’t hire Coppola on a full-time basis, instead tabling the issue.
When the topic came up at the WPCA’s Sept. 3 meeting, Stowe said he thought Coppola would be at the meeting to advise WPCA members.
“I don’t know why he’s not here,” Stowe said.
Parente then told him the reason.
“I talked to Mr. Coppola today and he’s declined the position,” Parente said.
Asked by Stowe to “explain further,” Parente said Coppola phoned him that afternoon.
“He called me and said ‘Do you want me to come to the meeting tonight?’” Parente said. “I said ‘Well Joe, I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t think you’re the right guy for the job.’”
Parente said he told Coppola that if the WPCA brought him on board, he couldn’t do any other work for the city, and that he might also have to “go against the mayor on certain issues,” without elaborating.
In addition to his part-time role assisting the WPCA, Coppola has done work for the city on certain public works projects, according to John Marini, the city’s full-time corporation counsel.
Marini said Monday (Sept. 8) he didn’t know how much the city has paid Coppola for his work, but said he’d request specific numbers from the city’s finance department.
The Valley Indy left phone and email messages seeking comment with Coppola Monday.
After being told Coppola wouldn’t be hired, Stowe took Parente to task for making a decision without input from the rest of the WPCA members.
Parente indicated he didn’t want a lawyer who could be a mouthpiece for the mayor’s office.
“I determined that if you’re going to represent the board, you’re going to represent the board,” Parente reponded. “You’re not going to represent the board and be beholden to the mayor.”
Stowe seemed at a loss for words.
“If we have one person that runs the WPCA there really is no reason to have any extra commissioners,” he told Parente.
“And if we have the mayor dictating who we’re going to hire for an engineer and who we’re going to hire for a lawyer, then we really don’t need a board either, we just let the mayor run it all,” Parente said.
The two then argued about whether that was the case.
Stowe said there’s no harm in the city’s various departments knowing what each of the others is doing.
Parente said he felt the mayor’s administration was trying to “force (Coppola’s hiring) down my throat,” citing the authority’s July meeting at which Cassetti introduced Coppola to the WPCA and Stowe recommended hiring him full-time.
Parente asked Stowe how he picked Coppola, who has long been involved in local GOP politics.
A Madison resident, Coppola donated $40 to Cassetti’s campaign last year, and $300 to Staffieri’s re-election effort. He also helped prepare Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti’s financial disclosure filings during Lauretti’s run for governor this year.
Prior to that, Coppola worked for years as Derby’s corporation counsel, occasionally butting heads with Democratic Aldermen critical of the Staffieri administration.
Stowe told Parente that he heard good things about Coppola’s work for Derby, and that Marini and Cassetti recommended hiring him.
Stowe said he felt the commission needed a lawyer “because of the issues that seem to be coming into this room lately, and so we don’t have any trouble with attorneys or suits to the city,” a reference to the WPCA’s previous lawyer alleging age discrimination after his dismissal in January.
The city has vowed to contest the former lawyer’s complaint.
The discussion was certainly “transparent,” a word used to describe open government. The matter was discussed in public, even after a WPCA member suggested it was a personnel issue to be discussed in a private executive session.
After the back-and-forth between Stowe and Parente, WPCA member Kennethy Plavnicky asked if the matter could be discussed more behind closed doors, during the executive session portion of the meeting.
But Rita St. Jacques, the city’s sewer administrator, pointed out matters to be discussed in executive session have to be noted on the meeting’s agenda in order to give public notice that a public agency may discuss something secretly, which the Coppola issue was not.
Stowe said that’s exactly the sort of issue it would help to have a lawyer at the meeting present for the WPCA to consult.
“Now we can’t even ask the questions (because no lawyer is here),” Stowe said. “We need to work together better than this.”
Worth noting — the WPCA could have had its entire discussion of whether to hire a lawyer or not behind closed doors, had members put notice of their discussion on the agenda.
That’s because the appointing or hiring of employees is one of several exceptions the state’s Freedom of Information law gives public agencies to discuss matters privately.
On Monday Cassetti tried to pour cold water on any notion of a clash between him and Parente.
Parente and Cassetti have known each other for decades — Parente worked for Cassetti’s construction business for 30 years.
Parente, also a former member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, said the two had a falling out years ago before Cassetti, at a chance meeting after his election as mayor, asked him to help revive the WPCA, many members of which had resigned toward the end of former Mayor James Della Volpe’s tenure.
The Board of Aldermen re-appointed Parente to the WPCA last month. His term will expire Jan. 31, 2017.
“It seems like there’s a rift, but there’s no rift between the city and the WPCA,” Cassetti said. “The big picture, I’m in charge of. I’m the mayor of the city, I have a lot on my plate. Nunzio’s just a little sliver.”
Cassetti said he met with Coppola while mayor-elect and recommended the WPCA bring him on because of his prior experience in Derby.
But if the WPCA doesn’t want to, so be it, the mayor said.
“It’s really up to the board to decide that,” Cassetti said.
Stowe, while delivering his monthly WPCA update to fellow Aldermen during a meeting Sept. 9, downplayed last week’s spat as “a little bit of growing pains,” but said the WPCA is “looking forward to performing well and hopefully being able to cut costs for the plant.”
