Fairfield GOP, Dems Have Dueling Contamination Proposals

FAIRFIELD, CT — Fairfield's two political parties want similar actions taken to address the town's recent contamination controversy, but have different ideas about who should oversee the response.

Groups affiliated with town Republicans and Democrats announced dueling oversight proposals Tuesday, about two months after two town employees and a former contractor were arrested on charges connected to illegal dumping at the town public works yard. In the weeks following the arrests, contaminants were found at sites across Fairfield.

Republican members of the Representative Town Meeting want the Board of Selectmen to approve the hiring of an independent risk management firm that would report to the board, according to a news release from the group. The Republicans have sought a special town meeting, scheduled for Oct. 10, to discuss and consider a request that First Selectman Mike Tetreau bring the matter to the board for a vote.

Fairfield's Democrat town meeting members and Tetreau, also a Democrat, are proposing a bipartisan resident commission to handle oversight of the contamination issues, according to a news release from Tetreau's campaign manager. Commission membership would be equally split between the two major parties and members would be neither political officeholders nor candidates. The proposal represents a combination of two separate ideas for resident groups previously put forth by the town meeting's Democrat members and Tetreau.

Both the Republican and Democrat proposals ask that whoever oversees the response to the crisis be tasked with studying the history of the operation of the public works yard, conducting a review of town contracting procedures, and revisiting Fairfield's standards of ethics.

The Republicans' proposal includes a request that the responsible entity collaborate with an independent licensed environmental professional, who would determine the reliability of contamination tests and remediation work already conducted for the town and make recommendations. A similar request appeared in the Democrat town meeting members' original proposal, but is not present in the joint announcement with Tetreau.

Fairfield hired Julian Development in 2013 to operate its public works yard and reduce the size of a pile of unused project material by 40,000 cubic yards. But over the next three years, the pile more than doubled in size, and days before the agreement was set to end, PCBs and lead were discovered on the property.

After conservation officials said the transportation and dumping of contaminated material could have violated state or federal law, police opened an investigation in 2017. Former director of public works Joe Michelangelo, former superintendent of public works Scott Bartlett and Julian Companies Owner Jason Julian were charged this summer with crimes including larceny, forgery and dumping.

In the past six weeks, 60 areas in Fairfield have been tested for contamination, the town announced last Friday. Eight of those sites tested at levels above residential standards, and results are pending for another two areas.

In addition to the criminal case, Fairfield has sued Julian for millions in damages and Julian has sued the town for defamation.