To Westport’s residents and the RTM delegates purporting to represent them: 

Last evening, the RTM Rules subcommittee was requested to affirm Town Charter’s prescribed right for 20+ Westport citizens to petition the RTM to hear a matter that concerns them. While four RTM members did so, five did not, including the RTM moderator and deputy moderator who should have recused themselves. 

Every Westport resident should be outraged. 

In their opinion, which is being used as the foil to accomplish this stripping of Westport residents’ rights, Attorneys Flug and Bloom would have the RTM self impose restrictions on what resident-initiated matters the RTM moderator can and cannot place on the RTM agenda.

Tonight, Tuesday, Oct. 3, the full RTM will consider a resident-generated petition that directly impacts the ability of Westport’s residents to discuss the matters that they deem to be important at the RTM. This is critically important because it is so consequential. 

At someone’s request, Attorney Flug provided the RTM moderator an opinion resulting in Mr. Wieser denying the resident petitioners’ request. In that opinion, Attorney Flug explained her rationale, which at first blush, seems “logical” from her vantage point, but makes no sense when you realize that given the certainty of the RTM’s involvement at some point in time, her reasoning is actually based only upon a contention that it is just “too soon” for RTM involvement because there is “no resolution from BoF or P&Z for it to act upon yet.”

In addition, Attorney Flug made several assertions and assumptions that upon inspection are simply unsupported, invalid or merely her interpretation or opinion of what constitutes “common sense,” rather than being based in fact. Last evening, she was shooting from the hip when she asserted that the charter permits the RTM to discuss “national issues” that are out of its purview, but not permitted to discuss local ones — clearly making this up. 

Being a town employee contracted and salaried by the first selectperson, Town Attorneys Flug and Bloom must be viewed (for certain opinions) as potentially having an inherent conflict of interest which mandates recusal — especially when such opinion is predicated upon the application of a subjective determination of what constitutes “common sense,” and concludes in the specific interest of his/her employer. 

Attorney Flug’s recommendation is clearly intended to promote a more autocratic empowerment of the first selectman by intentionally and severely restricting the ONLY means for people to raise issues for consideration, must be seen for what it is — “A Town Hall power grab at the expense of the residents” — and taken very seriously. 

The Town Charter states: Legislative power: “The RTM SHALL have general investigatory power …” therefore in the instance of the Parker Harding and the LLSBC/Community Gardens issue, investigating and discussing the resident concerns AT ANY TIME is charter stipulated to be under the RTM’s purview. There is no charter timeframe stipulation. 

The Town Charter states: Agenda. “The Moderator or, in the event of inability to act, the Deputy Moderator or, in the event of the inability of both, the Town Clerk shall place on the agenda of the Representative Town Meeting such matters as the First Selectman, 2 Representative Town Meeting members or 20 electors of the Town may request by written notice…”. 

There is NO Town Charter restriction regarding what subject matters may be requested by the petitioners, and there is no empowerment of the moderator (or in his/her absence the deputy moderator or town clerk) to use his/her “opinion” to filter what is appropriate for the RTM agenda. There is also no Town Charter provision for the moderator to discuss the petitioner’s agenda request with any town official, or to request an opinion of the town attorney that would impact the resident-initiated petition. Just like Mike Pence asserted, the RTM moderator’s role is merely a “procedural formality” means to accomplish the prescribed mandate. 

Control of the agenda, and thereby control of what the town considers and what gets acted upon, has been a significant problem in Westport for quite some time. Clear examples include the repeated refusal of the PRC to consider the skate park and Baron’s South property, resulting in their degradation and deterioration in the face of repeated requests by Westport’s residents to attend to these embarrassments. 

The RTM is the ONLY town body that has Town Charter empowerment for residents to ensure consideration of their concerns by delineating a process. That the Town Attorney would eliminate such resident capability is an attempt to strip the ONLY means for residents the guarantee of meaningfully voicing their concerns and desires in a legitimate and meaningful public forum. THIS is what is at stake. 

Ms. Flug cites the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut mandates that we use “common sense.” That in 1949 the framers of our Town Charter desired and intended to silence the voice of the people in the manner that Attorneys Flug and Bloom assert, IS NOT using “common sense.”

Attorney Flug asserted “… in our opinion, an [RTM] ‘matter’ is limited to items that are within the RTM’s jurisdiction and actionable by the RTM …” THAT opinion is not supported by any charter language. 

Crucially, Attorney Flug overlooks a far more reasonable understanding of the charter’s ultimate purpose for the RTM: to provide TOWN RESIDENTS the opportunity to discuss, debate and opine on matters of importance TO THEM. Her recommendation is a pernicious attempt to abolish 20+ residents’ right to freedom of speech. 

Mr. Suggs has uncovered direct evidence proving that the framers specifically retained the ability for the people to maintain that unbridled capability by codifying it in specific charter language — especially because the RTM is the ONLY place in their newly created charter structure that endows residents that ability to petition for a discussion. 

That there is NO charter stipulation defining what may and may not be placed on the RTM agenda must be presumed to have been intentional. That the moderator wishes to filter which “matters” the residents may petition is NOT a right granted to the RTM moderator. It is an intent to empower a single individual to muzzle the public. 

Attorney Flug has admitted that ANY business can be added to the RTM agenda by a two-thirds vote (24 members when a full attendance). Therefore, with their opinions, Attorneys Flug and Bloom assert that the framers endowed the RTM with the power to add ANYTHING to the agenda, but residents were not so authorized despite having a similar 20+ petitioner threshold avenue. It is disturbing they believe Westport’s individual and collective residents are defined as less important than the handful of residents (36 out of 27,000) who are elected to represent them. 

Conclusion: 

The RTM was created to be the voice of the people in lieu of the prior Town Hall meetings. The Town Charter DOES NOT stipulate that the only matters that the RTM is permitted to discuss are RTM actionable — and by omitting any such prohibitions the charter clearly implies that the “ultimate purpose” of the RTM goes beyond only actionable items. 

Attorney Flug’s asserted that: “… in our opinion” a “matter” is limited to items that are within the RTM’s jurisdiction and actionable by the RTM” is just specious, intentionally biased towards the town’s CEO, not charter supported, and NOT BASED IN FACT. 

In their Sept. 29, 2023, version of the 2019 memorandum to Velma Heller on this same issue, Ira and Eileen intentionally omitted the following important admission found on the last page of the Oct. 15, 2019: 

In referencing the RTM’s ability to discuss issues “outside the scope of the RTM” via two-thirds vote of the voting members present, in 2019 Eileen Flug wrote: 

“Finally, the RTM has a long tradition of considering items that are outside the scope of its jurisdiction through nonbinding ‘sense of the meeting’ resolutions.” 

This is an important smoking gun that clarifies the intention behind the current Attorney opinion because this intentionally omitted acknowledgment is key. John McCarthy presented Jeff Wieser with a legitimate resident petition with the intention of engendering an RTM discussion about Parker Harding. It was not a demand that the RTM create an enforceable resolution that would overstep its authority. It was an opportunity for the Town residents to voice their opinions, raise concerns, debate an important town altering proposition in a public forum and in so doing provide the RTM the opportunity to resolve a “Sense of the Meeting” resolution that could appropriately add to the decision- making of the other Town bodies before it became “too late” to do so. 

Given this glaring omission, Ira and Eileen’s opinion obfuscates the foundational issue at hand. 

According to Section 1.7 of the Town Handbook, the RTM moderator and deputy have a direct tangible personal interest in seeing this resolution defeated, and as such they should have recused themselves — and their votes must be discounted. As such, tonight the RTM rules subcommittee should report to the full RTM that they were actually in favor of the motion to affirm the charter’s language and intention by a vote of 4-3-1 with 2 recusals. 

A few RTM members used the specious excuse of “protecting the RTM from wasting their time” (absurdly citing potential Nazis, baseball, and popcorn petitioners). This reasoning was insulting. Mr. Wieser desires the power to decide which town resident concerns will be given air to be heard. Because the Town Charter’s language DOES NOT grant him that power, he desires to codify his ability as RTM moderator to filter Westport taxpayer and thereby block any item he deems to be “inappropriate.” It’s all about control. 

Every resident should listen to what Mr. Colabella and Mr. Mandell emotionally pleaded in defense of democracy and their obligations to constituents. Alternatively, by sealing off resident access to the agenda Mr. Wieser wishes to take Town Hall one step closer to autocracy. That is not hyperbole. 

Opining that residents could use library space to discuss their concerns might be valid; however, it is a frivolous attempt to skirt the fundamental principles of democracy — i.e., providing an avenue for residents to voice their concerns on ANY matter important to them in a recognized public governmental forum. 

It was very disappointing that the five RTM members who are so worried about theoretically wasting their time on “Nazis, baseball and popcorn” are not equally impassioned about protecting the rights of their constituents to have their voices heard in accordance with the Town Charter and the framers’ intent. 

Before tonight’s RTM meeting each member should look in the mirror, ask themselves if their constituents want them to strip them of the ONLY charter provision that guarantees them access to a town agenda in order to have their voices heard for five minutes — and then vote accordingly. 

Jay M. Walshon, MD FACEP

Westport