Simsbury Board of Selectmen Meeting January 22, 2024

Board of Selectmen Meeting January 22, 2024

It appears that the Board of Selectmen will not rescind the Rules and Procedures pertaining to Public Audience.

The Constitution has lasted for hundreds of years, protecting the First Amendment and people’s rights.

Any curtailment of the Constitution is reason to remove all elected officials who violate the Constitutional rights of the public.

In a recent article by Steven Goode, it states, “Simsbury Town Attorney Robert DeCrescenzo, who was asked by Coe to undertake a review of the new policies after they were adopted in December, disagreed with her interpretation of them.”

The new policies, he said, reflect those concerns, but do not limit free speech.

"None of these rules of decorum affect the First Amendment," DeCrescenzo said, adding that there are no limits to the subject matter that residents can bring up.”

"The Board of Selectmen is entitled to set reasonable time, place, manner, and restrictions within a public forum," he said. DeCrescenzo added that the new rules regarding public complaints about appointed town employees was only a suggestion, and that if residents aren't satisfied with the response they get from the Town Manager they can still bring issues to the Board of Selectmen.

Dan Barrett, legal director for the Connecticut ACLU, said that if it's only a suggestion that it's OK, but added that it was not his interpretation.

"This does not read as a mere suggestion," he said in an email, noting the language of the new rules: The Board reserves the right to curtail any speaker addressing the Board in a manner that is not consistent with this Section."

These rules place preconditions on Free Speech.

Dan Barrett from the ACLU has more experience defending free speech than the Board of Selectman, the Town Attorney and the Town Manager.

"The Board of Selectmen is entitled to set reasonable time, place, manner, and restrictions within a public forum," he said.(Decrescenzo)

The quote from Town Attorney DeCrescenzo is inconsistent with a negotiated settlement that was a result of a Federal Lawsuit Joan Coe vs Theodore Tansi. November 14, 1990

Theodore Tansi was Simsbury’s First Selectman.

This settlement that is required to be affixed to wall in the Main Meeting Room describes time, place, manner and restrictions, not Attorney Decrescenzo or the Board of Selectmen interpretations.

First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis’ quote, “Simsbury First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis defended the board's intent to protect appointed employees from harassment and possible defamatory remarks.

"With town staff, they don't have any recourse," Mackstutis said. "It can hurt their professional reputations."

First Selectman Wendy Mackstutis is restricting the taxpayers free speech to evaluate the employees that are employed in public service whereby the taxpayers have the right to evaluate their performance.

All public employees are servants of the people, who should and could evaluate their performance.

If the employees are annoyed by the public scrutiny they should apply for employment in the private sector.

Recently the Police Commission appointed Travis C. Schweizer Chairman .

Commissioner Travis voted along with all the members of the Police Commission to eliminate public audience although public audience was included as an agenda item for decades.

Travis was a Navy Captain, Navy Seal and served in the Navy for 26 years.

Is Travis Schweizer aware that the First Amendment is part of the Constitution that he served to defend?

I recently filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission to hold a hearing on my complaint that the Town and Police Department violated the Freedom of Information Act by delaying access to records requested.

I asked the Commission to impose a fine to the full extent of the law on these agencies.

Recently Don Stacom wrote and article stating, “More than five years after town leaders agreed the Connecticut venue that has featured famous acts needs an expansion and modernization, Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration is giving $900,000 to help make it happen.”

The grant will help pay for a permanent restroom building, a green room for performers, new storage for production equipment and other improvements for the Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, which bills itself as the state’s second-biggest outdoor theater.”

The Simsbury Performing Arts a private 501 C-3, a non-profit pivate organization

The $900,000 grant is just a small part of the investment that the taxpayers will will be asked to fund limiting other more important projects in a tight budget.

Permanent rest rooms will require a pumping station to deliver the waste to the Sewer Department.

Additional buildings and storage facilities will create an environmental disaster.

All immediate costs and future costs above the Grant money should be paid by the private Simsbury Performing Arts organization, not the taxpayers.