BROOKFIELD — First Selectwoman Tara Carr’s announcement last month that she would initiate an inquiry into past alleged behavior by the Board of Finance chair sparked concerns that she could operate outside of the town charter and state laws meant to guide personnel complaints and investigations.
In a letter sent to the Board of Finance on June 13, Brookfield Republican Matt Grimes cautioned the town officials around sections of the town charter which designates the Board of Selectmen as the only authority for engaging an “investigation,” — “not the first selectmen’s office.”
Carr said she is unaware of a Board of Ethics complaint submitted about the finance board chair. The Board of Selectmen has not voted to seek outside counsel for an investigation.
“I do not know if an ethics violation was ever submitted regarding Glenn Rooney, but yes I do believe any time the Town Charter and/or the Town Code of Ethics is violated it should be filed/reported, investigated and decided on accordingly,” she said in an email Thursday.
Carr referred questions about the town’s ethics complaint process with links to sections of the town’s charter detailing procedures for an ethics complaint.
Complaints must be submitted to the town clerk, who notifies the respondent and the Board of Ethics, which conducts a probable cause investigation within 20 days, according to board procedure. The complaint and related documents wouldn’t be made public until after probable cause was determined.
From Grimes’ view “as a former Town Attorney with working knowledge of Brookfield’s Town Charter” and state statues, the Board of Finance “is the only entity by law that can discipline one of its members,” he wrote.
At a minimum, he concluded by urging the Board of Finance to ask the Board of Selectmen to grant access to special counsel, adding: “It goes without saying that recent events create a notion of impropriety for the Town’s current retained law firm to advise the [Board of Finance] in this regard.”
Ethics questions
The “notion of impropriety” stems from events leading up to Carr’s suggested ethics inquiry: a May email exchange between Board of Finance Chair Glenn Rooney and attorney Timothy Herbst from the town’s new legal firm, Marino, Zabel & Schellenberg, PLLC, where Herbst accused Rooney of making “misogynistic” comments toward Carr.
Members of the Board of Finance and other volunteer town officials defended Rooney in the weeks that followed, demanding an apology and joining other residents, including Grimes, who took issue with the manner in which the attorney interjected himself and called for action to be taken to limit his involvement in town matters.
In an open letter from the Board of Finance to the Board of Selectmen on May 20, its members called Herbst’s email “insulting and harmful,” and “crossed the line to personal and professional abuse.”
Three weeks after the email exchange, Carr sent a letter on June 8 to Rooney saying she planned to hire independent counsel to investigate a Dec. 3, 2020 incident between Rooney and female town employee where he allegedly threatened to get the woman fired, according to the letter. Rooney has said he apologized to the former first selectman at the time and told Hearst Connecticut Media last month, “I had a bad day.”
For this story, Rooney did not respond to comment requests by a Thursday afternoon deadline.
Carr sent the letter to Hearst Connecticut Media hours before she read it aloud at the Board of Finance meeting. She noted the finance board’s agenda had included a discussion of the legal firm, but that the town attorney hadn’t been invited.
“Attorney Herbst’s statements of which you took exception challenged the tone and demeanor you use when addressing Town staff and officials,” she wrote to Rooney. “Just as town employees felt you would retaliate against them in 2020, it appears that you are now using your position on the Board of Finance to retaliate against Town Counsel.”
“I will be seeking procurement of independent counsel to review your past conduct, the potential liability it may create to the Town, and steps to eliminate such further conduct in the future,” Carr wrote.
In the letter, she said she would ensure the town’s Code of Ethics is “fully and fairly enforced as to all such incidents outlined in this letter and any further incidents discovered during the Town’s expanded inquiry into this matter.”
After the email exchange, some officials demanded changes to the town’s contract with its legal firm. The town hasn’t done so, Carr said.
“No amendments have been made to the town’s contract with the firm providing legal counsel, Marino, Zabel & Schellenberg, PLLC,” she said.
Criticism of Carr
Howard Lasser, the director of the Brookfield Craft Center and a former Brookfield selectman, referenced the town’s charter in a letter sent to Carr on June 10, highlighting sections showing the first selectwoman does not hold “authority to engage special counsel without approval by the Board of Selectmen and others laying out the town’s Code of Ethics.
“…more important though, is that we have a process within our charter and ordinance[s] to address the behavior of town employees and officials,” he added.
“Even though I think Mr. Rooney is a conscientious volunteer, and though the allegations may be credible, there are challenges with your actions in this regard,” Lasser wrote.
A past member of the town’s Charter Review Commission, Mark Ferry, also wrote to Carr after she publicly discussed the allegations against Rooney, outlining how Brookfield’s rules and state statutes for an ethics investigation require “total confidentiality of the of the issue,” unless consent from the accused individual is received for it to become public.
“By publicly announcing that there’s an ethics investigation [into Mr. Rooney] that you are going to have the town pay for…you are violating the charter, Mr. Rooney’s right to confidentiality, wasting taxpayer money, and putting the town against its contracted law firm, when it is the law firm’s duty to protect the town, not to perform a witch-hunt on town volunteers,” Ferry told Carr.
Grimes said he could not verify them but called the past allegations against Rooney “disturbing” enough to be deserving of examination.
Still, he too flagged the “point of order” error made during the finance board’s exchange with Carr at their meeting June 8. The matter, he said, involved “personnel,” meaning that under the Connecticut Freedom of Information Law it can only be discussed in private during an executive session.
“A point of order should have been called immediately,” wrote Grimes.
At the end of the Board of Selectmen meeting Tuesday night, Carr moved to cancel a planned executive session to discuss parts of the town charter related to ethics investigations, striking it from the agenda as a result of Selectman Steve Dunn’s absence due to an illness.
During the public comment of the meeting, a couple residents spoke in favor of Carr and an investigation into the allegations. They blamed Dunn and Selectman Harry Shaker for not doing more two years ago when the incident happened.
Shaker said he could not comment on the allegations or if any investigation or ethics complaint existed against Rooney, but said he wasn’t aware of the allegations until recently.
“I found out the details of [the allegations] when everyone else did,” he said.
