Category Archives: Wallingford Center Inc.

Fishbein may reopen case against Wallingford Center Inc. – MyRecordJournal.com

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WALLINGFORD — Earlier this month, Town Councilor Craig Fishbein won his Freedom of Information case against Wallingford Center Inc. He is now seeking to re-open the case and have the Freedom of Information Commission impose a fine against WCI.

State statute allows fines of up to $1,000 for “unreasonable refusal to produce records that fall under the Freedom of Information Act,” Fishbein said Monday.

He is asking the commission to impose a fine of not less than $20 and not more than $1,000.

“… (WCI has) not only failed to provide the validity of their denial, but their excuse(s) for non-compliance could best be described as absurd,” Fishbein wrote in a March 25 letter. “It is the very conduct for which the legislature gave this Commission the power to levy a civil penalty. Ultimately, the Commission should never condone the flaunting of the law as the Respondents herein have done, and thus a civil penalty of the highest degree authorized by the legislature is not only warranted, but probably necessary to send a clear message to the Respondents, as well as others tempted to follow a similar path.”

Fishbein filed a complaint with the commission after Wallingford Center Inc. refused to provide him with meeting minutes and agendas.

WCI President Steve Lazarus did not return a call for comment Monday.

Last month, Paula Pearlman, who presided during a January hearing, wrote a proposed decision that said WCI would have to provide Fishbein copies of the minutes he requested, as well as comply with the Freedom of Information Act. The commission voted unanimously to adopt the report at an April 8 meeting.

Pearlman’s report does not mention a fine.

Because the commission already voted, the case is considered closed, said FOI Public Education Officer Tom Hennick.

“I’ve never seen it done, but Attorney Fishbein can send a letter asking to please reconsider,” Hennick said Monday. “That can reopen the case, but I’ve never seen that happen.”

Having WCI pay a civil penalty fee would send a message to other public agencies, Fishbein said Monday.

“The whole reason why it’s there is to prevent others from taking a similar dilatory, obstructionist track in denying the public information that it is entitled to,” he said.

WCI is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is the “beautification, preservation, promotion and economic revitalization of Wallingford’s center,” according to its website. The group is best known for its annual Celebrate Wallingford festival. It receives more than three-quarters of its funding from the town — a total of $84,650 this year. The organization requested $84,000 for the next fiscal year, according to Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr.’s proposed town budget.

evo@record-journal.com (203) 317-2235 Twitter: @EricVoRJ

FOI hearing officer: Wallingford Center Inc. is a public agency; organization won’t appeal – MyRecordJournal.com

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WALLINGFORD — Wallingford Center Inc. will not appeal a proposed decision by the state Freedom of Information Commission thats finds the organization is a public agency and subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

“We will comply with the decision,” WCI President Steven Lazarus said Wednesday. “… Frankly, the process has been a distraction to doing the work that is important to us and we don’t intend to prolong it.”

Wallingford Center Inc. is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is the beautification, preservation, promotion and economic revitalization of Wallingford ‘s center,” according to its website. The group is best known for its annual Celebrate Wallingford festival. It receives more than three-quarters of its funding from the town — a total of $84,650 this year.

In April 2014, Town Councilor Craig Fishbein filed a complaint with the state commission, detailing why he believes WCI is a public entity and should make meeting minutes, agendas and other documents public. WCI’s refusal to turn over documents to Fishbein prompted the complaint.

The proposed ruling was written by Paula Pearlman, who presided during a January hearing that included oral and written testimony by Fishbein and officials from WCI and the town. Now that Pearlman has issued her findings, the full commission will vote on a final decision at a meeting April 8.

If the commission votes to uphold Pearlman’s decision, WCI will have to give Fishbein copies of the requested documents and comply with all other state freedom-of-information rules. The commission rarely overturns a proposed decision.

Lazarus sent an email to Fishbein Wednesday saying he expects the documents he requested to be prepared by April 15.

“I’m happy to see them acquiescing after months of litigation and hours of hearing testimony,” Fishbein said Wednesday. “I’m disappointed that we had to go through all of this to get to this point, but I look forward to the commission affirming the hearing officer’s decision on April 8.”

Pearlman’s report details the evidence submitted during the hearing and explains that WCI meets most of the criteria of the functional equivalent test for a public agency. The ruling states that WCI performs governmental functions, receives substantial government funding and in-kind services, and that governmental involvement with the organization is significant.

“It is found that fostering economic revitalization and development are governmental functions and the respondents (WCI) are performing those functions,” the report states.

While WCI wasn’t created by government — a point Fishbein conceded — Pearlman wrote that “all relevant factors are to be considered cumulatively, with no single factor being essential or conclusive.”

“Accordingly, it is concluded that (WCI) violated (state statute), when they failed to provide the complainant with copies of the requested minutes, and failed to notice and post minutes of their meetings,” the report states.

evo@record-journal.com (203) 317-2235 Twitter: @EricVoRJ

Column: FOI complaint pits Wallingford non profit against town councilor – MyRecordJournal.com

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Glenn Richter’s March 8 R-J “Perspective” column begins by using his Duck Test: “If it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.” But apparently, his real duck test has to be: ducks are birds; some ducks are white; so, therefore, all white birds are ducks.

That had to be what he really meant to make the Grand Canyon-wide leap of logic to conclude that Wallingford Center, Inc., and the UConn Foundation are comparable because they both claim exemption from the state Freedom of Information Act.

I am distressed by the simplistic characterization of WCI’s efforts to defend its independence as maintaining a “cloak of secrecy”. Complex issues such as this one all too often get reduced to misleading and politically lazy shorthand, and this is one of those cases. As one of those named in the FOI complaint, I offer these two points:

First of all, there is no “cloak of secrecy”: WCI presents a detailed budget to the Wallingford Town Council every single year, and appears before that body as often as requested. Its board meetings are not closed. WCI welcomes scrutiny, especially by Town Councilors and especially in the form of volunteering to help in its events, which several do. The fact is that Town Councilors themselves have been serving on our Board for years. What WCI objected to, and is spending many hours defending against, is the unwarranted assumption that its acceptance of public funds automatically means that it completely surrenders its rights as a private organization.

Councilor Fishbein contends that our acceptance of town funds automatically gives him the right to direct the organization’s business, and that, in conforming to his assumed entitlement, we are subject to all the regulations of a government agency. This includes public posting of all meetings and board meeting minutes. On the face of it, the public postings seem an innocuous request; but we concluded that, if we were to protect our rights as a private organization of volunteers, it was time to draw the line.

Secondly, comparing little ol’ WCI with the UConn Foundation is, well, bizarre. Wallingford Center, Inc., has an annual budget of $130,175 and its total assets consist of office furniture and supplies worth maybe $5,000. The UConn Foundation manages assets of $489 million and took in $81 million last year alone. WCI was created by private citizens to promote the vitality of the center of Wallingford and has never, ever been under the control of town government. The UConn Foundation’s mission “is to solicit, receive, invest, and administer gifts and financial resources from private sources for the benefit of all campuses and programs of the University of Connecticut.” In other words, it was established exclusively as an arm of a State of Connecticut agency, its public university system.

The UConn Foundation is under scrutiny because of some dubious decisions, such as lavishing $250,000 on Hillary Clinton for a 30-minute appearance and providing a significant portion of a questionable salary increase to UConn’s president while, at the same time, that person cried to the state legislature that the university is strapped. WCI, on the other hand, is under no such controversy, a fact that Fishbein admits as such.

The first sentence on the FOI website reads: “The Freedom of Information Commission’s mission is to administer and enforce the provisions of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act, and to thereby ensure citizen access to the records and meetings of public agencies in the State of Connecticut” [my emphasis]. In the dispute between WCI and Town Councilor Fishbein, the Freedom of Information Act is being turned on its head and being inappropriately used as a tool of governmental authority to insert itself into the operation of a private organization under the guise of “watching out for the taxpayer.” WCI is defending itself against this unwarranted and precedent-setting intrusion on behalf of all such nonprofit organizations.

Stephen Knight is a former Wallingford Town Councilor.

Column: Why the cloak of secrecy? – MyRecordJournal.com

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If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is, for all intents and purposes, a duck. That’s the Duck Test, which is being applied right now at both the local and state levels.

In Wallingford, Town Councilor Craig Fishbein has asked the state Freedom of Information Commission to decide whether Wallingford Center Inc. is a public entity, and therefore covered by the Freedom of Information Act. In Hartford, some lawmakers are asking the same question about the University of Connecticut Foundation Inc. Both of these institutions maintain that they should be exempt from FOIA, so this is about the public’s right to know.

WCI defines itself as a “private, nonprofit organization” dedicated to “the beautification, preservation, promotion and economic revitalization of Wallingford’s center for the benefit of all the people of Wallingford.” The UConn Foundation says its mission is “to promote the educational, scientific, cultural, research and recreational objectives of the University of Connecticut.”

Which is all well and good, but why do both these civic-minded outfits insist that they must operate behind a cloak of secrecy?

Fishbein argues that WCI gets most of its funding from the town and performs activities that were handled by town government in the past. Richard Gee, a lawyer for WCI, argues that the Center “may be an ally of Town Government,” but the town doesn’t control it, and “funding alone, without control, is not enough” to make it a public entity.

State Rep. Roberta Willis, co-chairwoman of the General Assembly’s Higher Education Committee, says the UConn Foundation “really could be considered a functional equivalent of a government organization” because it serves a governmental function and it, too, receives public funding.

Although the general trend in this state — since 1975, when Gov. Ella T. Grasso signed the landmark Freedom of Information Act into law — has been toward open government, in recent years there have been setbacks, including Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s campaign to bring the formerly independent Freedom of Information Commission under executive control.

Fishbein has said he isn’t questioning “whether or not WCI does a good job,” but that “taxpayers are entitled to know the who, what and why of the use of their money.” In a situation where questions could easily arise as to who may benefit most from the Center’s actions, this seems like a reasonable proposition.

As for the Foundation, James H. Smith, the president of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information and a former executive editor of this newspaper, has pointed out that because it acts as a “surrogate” for UConn and “manages hundreds of millions of dollars,” the public “deserves detailed information” so it can judge the Foundation’s activities. While the claim has been made that openness will have “a chilling effect” on donations to the Foundation, discussions have already covered ways in which donor anonymity could be protected — which would put the focus on the what, where and when of its functions, rather than on the who — so it’s hard to see the sense of that argument. At the same time, it seems strange — and maybe even wrong — that more than a third of the university president’s annual compensation now comes from the UConn Foundation, a source that’s not the state of Connecticut and that’s not answerable to the people of the state of Connecticut.

When you’re working with public money and the public interest, what you do is public information. Or should be.

Reach Glenn Richter at grichter@record-journal.com.

FOI commission to make decision soon on Wallingford Center Inc. complaint – MyRecordJournal.com

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By Eric Vo Record-Journal staff

WALLINGFORD — The state Freedom of Information Commission is expected to decide whether Wallingford Center Inc. is a public entity — and therefore covered by the Freedom of Information Act — within the next month and a half.

Republican Town Councilor Craig Fishbein filed a complaint with the commission in April 2014. It details why he believes Wallingford Center Inc. is a public entity and should make meeting minutes, agendas, and other documents public. Fishbein filed the complaint after WCI denied his request for meeting minutes and agendas. The organization receives $78,000 in annual funding from the town.

The commission’s public education officer, Tom Hennick, said Friday that he expects the commission to reach a decision by mid-March or early April.

“The complaint was submitted to us on the 28th of April last year and it expires on the 27th of April this year,” Hennick said.

WCI is a “private, non-profit organization whose purpose is the beautification, preservation, promotion and economic revitalization of Wallingford’s center for the benefit of all the people of Wallingford,” according to its website.

WCI President Steve Lazarus did not attend the hearing and referred questions to Richard Gee, a lawyer representing the organization. Gee did not return a call for comment.

In Fishbein’s post-hearing brief, he says WCI performs activities that were handled by town government committees in the past and that a majority of its funding is provided by the town.

In Gee’s post-hearing brief, he writes that while Fishbein’s evidence mentions services provided by the town’s Public Works Department, “he fails utterly to show that the Town government is involved in controlling, supervising or in any way regulating the actions of WCI.”

“Funding alone, without control, is not enough,” Gee wrote. “WCI is a privately incorporated organization comprised of private citizens working to improve the downtown Wallingford, an area comprised of private businesses and property owners.”

Gee adds that WCI “may be an ally of Town Government, but it is not an authority of the Town Government.”

While both parties wait for the commission to make its decision, legal maneuvers continue. Fishbein filed a motion Thursday to strike WCI and Gee’s post-hearing brief, saying it included a document that was never offered into evidence.

“In this case, the respondents chose to attach to their brief, and reference in their argument, a document … that was never entered into evidence in this matter, nor ever proffered,” Fishbein wrote in his motion. “Said document is (at the very least) un-authenticated, hearsay, without foundation, and contains unsubstantiated expert and/or legal conclusions.”

The document in question is a November 2014 letter to Fishbein from Corporation Counsel Janis Small. In the letter, Small explains that the town’s Legal Department has not provided legal advice to WCI or worked with the organization.

The hearing officer allowed the document to be stricken from the record, but not Gee’s post-hearing brief, Fishbein said.

After the hearing, Gee also objected to Fishbein’s submission of a 19-minute video as evidence. The video contained seven clips from Town Council meetings when WCI officials appeared before councilors. WCI and Gee objected to the video, contending that it didn’t provide an accurate portrayal of the organization and that the clips were edited to Fishbein’s favor.

The hearing officer ultimately overruled the objection and allowed Fishbein’s video to be admitted as evidence.

In a phone interview Friday, Fishbein declined to comment on specifics of the hearing because he and WCI are awaiting the commission’s decision. He emphasized, however, that the complaint against WCI is not a challenge to the organization’s performance in town.

“This matter is not whether or not WCI does a good job,” he said. “Rather, it’s about an open and transparent use of public funds. In my opinion, taxpayers are entitled to know the who, what and why of the use of their money.”

evo@record-journal.com (203) 317-2235 Twitter: @EricVoRJ