By Matt Breslow
Staff Writer
June 6, 2007
NORWALK - A Common Council subcommittee's January recommendation to suspend Fire Chief Denis McCarthy was nullified this week under an agreement settling a Freedom of Information complaint The Advocate lodged against the panel.
The Advocate filed the complaint Feb. 2 with the state FOI Commission over the secret meeting during which a subcommittee of the council's Health, Welfare and Public Safety Committee agreed to make the recommendation.
The subcommittee was formed in January to investigate issues surrounding a video recording that surfaced in November, purportedly showing a city fireman using two racial slurs in the workplace.
During a Jan. 19 meeting at City Hall, held without advance public notice, the panel agreed to recommend that Mayor Richard Moccia suspend McCarthy during the subcommittee's investigation. The existence of the meeting was disclosed later that month.
Moccia declined to heed the recommendation, and McCarthy was never suspended. When the chief learned about the secret meeting, he said his rights were violated because he wasn't notified.
Assistant City Editor Jonathan Lucas, who filed the FOI complaint on behalf of The Advocate, agreed to the settlement this week with M. Jeffry Spahr, an attorney in the city's law department. The Advocate withdrew the complaint.
"I feel like we fulfilled our obligation as the public watchdog in this case," Lucas said yesterday. "Not only were we able to clear the fire chief's reputation, but more importantly, we secured the public's right to be involved in the process and sent a clear message that secret meetings can never be tolerated."
Spahr said the Rev. Phyllis Bolden, a council member and chairwoman of the investigative panel, unintentionally failed to comply with the state FOI Act in holding the subcommittee's first meeting.
As soon as the law department learned the meeting had occurred, it advised Bolden of the requirements of the FOI Act, and she has abided by them ever since, Spahr said.
Bolden could not be reached yesterday.
Under the complaint settlement, the investigative panel acknowledged it unintentionally violated the FOI Act. The subcommittee agreed to schedule an FOI workshop conducted by the FOI Commission.
Council President Michael Coffey yesterday said a representative from the FOI Commission will deliver a presentation on sunshine regulations June 26, at the next meeting of the council's Bipartisan Meeting.
Coffey, who serves on the investigative panel but did not attend the Jan. 19 meeting, said he thinks the presentation will be helpful to ensure the council does not violate the FOI Act. Meetings must be properly noticed, he said.
"It's important that we make government transparent and allow the sun to shine in," Coffey said.
Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.