City of Torrington MEETING MINUTES
2011 Charter Revision Commission February 6, 2012
Present were Chairwoman Elinor Carbone, Vice-Chairman Vic Muschell, Secretary James Steck, and Commissioners Gerry Zordan, Marie Soliani, Bill Battle, Debra Brown and Jim Thibault. Also present was Corporate Counsel Ernestine Weaver. Commissioner Jim McKenna was absent.
The City of Torrington 2011 Charter Revision Commission (the “Commission”) opened its eighth meeting at 5:00 PM in Room 215 at City Hall, Torrington.
The Agenda for this meeting read as follow:
- Approve minutes of the Dec. 5, 2011, Jan. 4, 2012 & Jan. 18, 2012 meetings;
- Public Comment and Participation – (3 minutes per speaker);
- Discussion/Review list of Proposed Recommendations;
- Old Business
- New Business
- Adjournment
(Agenda Item #1) Approve Minutes
January 4 and January 18, 2012 minutes were approved. Gerry Zordan requested the December 5, 2011 minutes be tabled to allow more review time. He asked that future minutes be sent in a more timely fashion to allow review by Committee members.
(Agenda Item #2) Public Comment and Participation
Sam Slaiby spoke to the group regarding the tax collection issue. He mentioned his previous commentary that expressed his desire to replace the private tax collection with a public department. He elaborated further that he felt the Debra Brown and James Steck (Brown/Steck) proposal was a good one and one he supported. He was thanked for his input.
Rob Crovo also spoke to the Commission and shared with the members a letter he had presented to Mayor Bingham. The letter outlined his understanding of the need to review the current tax collection process. He then offered his willingness to resign from his position if the Committee intended to pursue a City Charter change recommendation. Vic Muschell responded by thanking Mr. Crovo for his efforts, understanding and offer of flexibility. He further added that he felt Mr. Crovo’s offer to end his contract with the City was not pertinent to the work of the Commission. He expressed that Mr. Crovo’s involvement, or lack thereof, is not material to the decision of how the City Charter should be maintained. No further comment was made.
(Agenda Item #3) Discussion/Review of Proposed Recommendations
Vic Mushell began the discussion of the Tax Collection issue. He provided the Committee a 14-point memo outlining his contrasting views of the Brown/Steck proposal along with a chart illustrating tax collection history for other Cities with similar (AENGLC) wealth ranks to
Torrington. Vic made the case that the potential tax receipt losses associated with average, public tax collection rates are too significant to ignore and that there is no downside to continuing the current private collection arrangement. Debra Brown commented that the Commission had never voted to make the decision based strictly on the financial analysis. The Committee agreed.
Elinor continued the discussion by referring to item 1a. in the Brown/Steck proposal and offering her view that the contract adequately addresses the issue of Tax Collector succession. Elinor went further by referring to item 2 of the Brown/Steck proposal and stated that she feels the current contract adequately addresses the discipline, control, accountability and flexibility issues. Vic Muschell added that the current contract is actually more restrictive than the current statutes require.
Elinor continued by handing out a final report from the State of Connecticut Task Force to Study Municipal Tax Collection that illustrated the tax collection problem experienced by the City of Waterbury. The study found that the Waterbury problem was one of poor contract management on the part of the City, rather than the private tax collection arrangement. The City of Seymour, in contrast, better managed their contracts and did not face the same losses as did Waterbury.
Elinor finished by summarizing her feelings that the Commission had established an analysis methodology and that it had been fully executed in a balanced way. Jim Thibault made a motion that the Commission not recommend a tax collection Charter change and that we make clear in the records that the Commission had fully evaluated the private vs. public tax collection issue, and found that a change was not favorable for the City. He added that all documents and data analysis be made part of the public record. Debra Brown commented that she saw no harm in changing the Charter language as outlined in the Brown/Steck proposal. Jim Steck said he had a better understanding of the succession plan and was more comfortable. The motion passed by a six to two vote.
Elinor reminded the group we would be covering Priority #1 (Office Terms) and Priority #4 (Board of Safety) in upcoming February meetings. Data is still being gathered for Priority #2 (Extraordinary Expenses). Priorities #5 (City Council language clarification) and #6 (Elimination of Selectman from Ballot) are on-hold pending completion of Priorities #1 through #4. Marie Soliani commented that we should be careful not to add recommendations we do not feel are important. She is concerned of potentially over-complicating the ballot.
(Agenda Item #4) Old Business
No discussion.
(Agenda Item #5) New Business
No Discussion
(Agenda Item #6) Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 5:50 PM
Respectfully submitted,
James A. Thibault
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