Ex-mayor, councilman sue to overturn CT town's controversial $117M budget referendum
The political atmosphere in Bloomfield grew even more contentious Wednesday when a former mayor and a former town councilman sued to reverse the controversial $117 million budget referendum.
The lawsuit accuses Mayor Danielle Wong's administration of conducting a 'substantially false and misleading' referendum.
It argues that the correct budget proposal was $113 million — but was bumped up to $117 million at the last minute only because Wong and her town council majority added $4 million that should've been sent to a separate public vote.
The lawsuit by former Mayor Sydney Schulman, a Democrat, and former council member Rickford Kirton is the latest instance of an uncommonly public rift within the town's dominant political party. Suzette DeBeatham-Brown, another former Democratic mayor, had been clashing with Wong and her supporters long before the latest controversy.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit — including resident Lucy Hurston — are asking a Superior Court judge to declare the May 28 referendum invalid. They want the court to order a new referendum with two parts: One vote on the $113 million operations budget and a second on the $4 million fund appropriated for economic development.
Republican Councilman Shamar Mahon has argued for two months that the council — including his two GOP colleagues — was wrong when it added those two together.
'The residents have been cheated out of a referendum vote due to the sudden change between the $113 million that was initially approved during our annual town meeting and the $117 million that came up when we voted to move forward with setting the referendum question,' Mahon told the council at its June 9 meeting.
Mahon contended that the council endorsed a $113 million budget in mid-May, and then later added in $4 million for economic development. He complained that when he objected, the town attorney took several days to give an opinion saying the $4 million could be part of the overall budget vote.
Critics have complained that the maneuver was a way for the council to work around a charter requirement that requires appropriations of more than 1.5% of the budget to be a separate referendum question.
As has happened frequently this year, Wong and Mahon clashed during the June 9 discussion. She'd previously announced a two-minute time limit on his remarks, and then interrupted him mid-sentence to announce that another councilor now had the floor.
Mahon and Wong talked over each other for the next 30 seconds, with Mahon insisting she'd cut him off too early and Wong demanding he stop. The meeting devolved into a raucous discussion between councilmen about whether to simply adjourn.
Even though Mahon helped the petition drive to force a referendum on the budget, the lawsuit names him as a defendant along with each of the other council members, Wong and the town itself. Town Manager Alvin Schwapp Jr. and the town clerk are also listed as defendants.
Bloomfield-centered community pages have seen frequent posts since early May complaining about the budget and the looming tax increase. Several commentors have defended Wong and her administration, but others have complained there's a pattern of high-handedness at Bloomfield town hall.
'They were given multiple opportunities to do the right thing, but they chose to ignore the will of the people,' James Biffer, a frequent critic of the administration, wrote soon after the suit was filed Wednesday. 'So now, there are consequences for those decisions.'
The referendum itself passed, but narrowly and only because of an unusual charter requirement that 15% of all eligible voters must vote 'no' to reject it. The overall vote was 1,934 'against' and just 494 'for,' a four-to-one landslide. But opponents fell short of the 15% figure, so the budget was approved.
Wong has said she's leaving when this term ends in November, and Democrats over the next few weeks are interviewing candidates for the council ballot going into the November election.
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