Letter: Fairfield RTM Should Not Oversee First Selectwoman

To the editor,

In calling for a revision of the town charter to provide for increased oversight of the first selectman by the RTM and citing as the basis for her position a vague reference to “what the town has been through over the past 6-7 years,” representative Wackerman has missed the point on several different levels.

Let’s set aside for the moment that her proposal would represent an unwarranted intrusion by the town’s legislative body into what are clearly executive prerogatives.

The problem of public corruption in Fairfield might only be attributable in small part to inadequate checks and balances of town departments by other town boards. It was fundamentally a failure of the prior administration (specifically the prior first selectman himself) to put in place basic management controls, which would have afforded him sufficient visibility into town departments and accountability within his own administration.

This fact has no doubt been a source of embarrassment for some if not many members of Wackerman’s party. They saw no need for oversight of DPW by other town boards when the corruption was ongoing. In fact, representative Wackerman herself abstained on a vote at the RTM to support a request for a criminal investigation into the fill pile scandal. Furthermore, she stood before the RTM and argued assertively against proposals for such oversight by the Board of Finance.

The unfortunate truth is that since the RTM has been under Democratic control it has been less than cooperative with the first selectman office. The RTM itself as a body is ill-equipped to manage town administration, nor is it its role.

The RTM needs to find ways to work with other town boards for the good of the town, and not spend its time inventing new creative ways such as this to throw their bodies across the tracks, whenever the first selectwoman attempts to make course corrections.

Tom McCarthy

Fairfield