Letter To The Editor: Do Not Reduce The Size Of The Fairfield RTM

The following Letter to the Editor is an open letter to the Fairfield Charter Revision Commission:

To: Charter Revision Commission and Board of Selectpersons

I?m a lifetime Fairfield resident and served on the Land Acquisition Commission, Flood and Erosion Control Board and the Wetland Setbacks Subcommittee of the Conservation Commission. I was a founding member of Friends of Open Space and a board member of FairPLAN.

Through my involvement I?ve come to appreciate the work that the various town bodies have contributed to the town. This includes the Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting.

While I?m relieved that the CRC rejected changing our entire form of government which has served us well all these decades, I?m very concerned with the proposals which would transfer power from the legislative branch to the executive branch, specifically to the First Selectperson.

I respectfully ask that you reject a number of the proposed changes, listed below, followed by 2 changes I suggest be added to the Charter:

1. Do not reduce the size of the RTM. Fairfield?s RTM is already only a fraction of the size of the other RTMs in the State. It must keep its current size and be able to respond to the concerns of each district. Especially with a growing population, there is no justification to reduce the cap by 46 percent from 56 to 30.

2. Do not give the First Selectperson the power to either mediate or resolve, differences between the various town bodies. This would expose them to political influence, and having served on a number of these public bodies, this is unacceptable to me.

The First Selectperson already has enough power including sole appointment authority over a number of top town officials and the entire Conservation Commission. Many of the recent scandals could have been avoided with more oversight.

3. Do not lessen the professional expertise we have always required of our DPW Director- he or she must continue to be ?a professional engineer registered in the State.? Through my time on various commissions I know how complex and massive the challenges are that our town faces in coming years.

This is not the time to relax our standards, with worsening weather and climate change and our aging infrastructure. I would like to ask why we have not recruited a qualified Director of DPW in almost the past 3 years? We shouldn?t change the charter to accommodate the acting interim DPW head who is not qualified under our current Town Charter.

I propose that the CRC make the following changes to our Charter.

First, the Conservation Commission be an elected body to protect it from political pressure. The First Selectperson should not have sole jurisdiction over this increasingly important commission. Fairfield is one of a very few towns that allows just one public official to make Conservation Commission appointments. Our Town?s environmental health depends on a completely independent body.

Second, the Charter should mandate that the Conservation Commission, with the approval of the Conservation Director, must employ a full time Wetlands Administrator, rather than making it optional. With all the new development near fragile wetlands areas, this important position must never be eliminated again, as happened last year.

Finally, I have read that you are rushing this process unnecessarily, cutting out as much as half the time legally allowed. By analogy, the wetland setbacks subcommittee spent 3 years studying our town?s watersheds: researching, doing field work and compiling data, to develop our recommended wetlands review areas. Certainly charter revision deserves the same attention and due diligence.

These are lasting, far reaching changes which will become the law of our town and very difficult to change again. I request that you take all the time legally allowed, so that the final proposed changes are truly in the best interests of our Town and its residents.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,
Jeanne Konecny
Fairfield, CT