Simsbury Considers How to Replace Glassman as First Selectman

Town officials are looking through local and state rules to replace First Selectman Mary Glassman, even as some residents have a petition to reverse the pay cut that led to her announcement Monday that she would be resigning, the Hartford Courant reported.

The newspaper reported: According to Tom Cooke, the town director of administrative services, the town has 30 days to fill the job with a member of the same party, a Democrat, after Glassman’s scheduled resignation on Jan. 2, 2015. Town Counsel Robert DeCrescenzo will report to the Board of Selectmen on Monday about what state and local rules the board must follow in the decision.

If the board doesn’t fill the job within 30 days, state law says the town’s “elective town officers” then have 60 days to do it, according to the newspaper.

Meanwhile, an online petition has been started at MoveOn.org by Simsbury residents Carl and Melissa Meyer to ask selectmen to rescind its earlier vote to cut Glassman’s pay. As of mid-afternoon Wednesday, there were 904 online ”signatures” on the petition.

Text of the Petition

Here’s the text of the petition (it’s all one sentence, but the version below is broken up with blank lines):

Given that the Town consultant recommended that the First Selectman’s salary be reduced at the end of the current term, and

given that it will only save the Town of Simsbury $16,000 to reduce that salary 6 months early, and

in consideration of the fact that Simsbury’s first selectman has served our town for 16 years and voluntarily froze her own salary since 2008 (No COLAs [cost of living adjustments]), and

to prevent the unnecessary and harmful resulting perception that partisanship may have played a role in the decision, and

all the while understanding that people of goodwill may nonetheless disagree,

we respectfully call on the Board of Selectman to please reverse your 3-to-2 decision to reduce the Simsbury first selectman’s salary and deny her participation in the defined-benefit plan six months before the end of her current term.