Amity towns 'outraged'

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Amity towns 'outraged'

Weizel, Register Correspondent February 21, 2002

ORANGE - The first selectmen of Orange, Woodbridge and Bethany said they are

outraged that Amity school officials improperly spent $1.4 million on

litigation attorneys and they want the money back.

The funds were part of a $2.85 million bond approved in 1998 by voters to

eliminate toxic mold and fungi problems at Amity Regional High School.

The first selectmen said they are particularly upset the revelations came

just days after taxpayers in the towns will be hit with a special tax levy

to bail Amity out of a $2.3 million budget deficit.

The Board of Education will consider returning the money to the towns during

a special meeting Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the district offices in Woodbridge.

" I'm dumbfounded, " said Woodbridge First Selectwoman Amey Marrella. " If they

spent bond money on something other than remediation, that disturbs me very

deeply. I want to know exactly where the money went. "

Orange First Selectman Goldblatt said Amity should return the money

using a $2.7 million mediation settlement the school board was awarded last

month after a five-year legal battle with contractors.

Amity officials told the selectmen last month that the entire $2.7 million

settlement had to be used to pay down the bond debt.

But at a meeting Friday, former Orange First Selectman C.

Sousa told the first selectmen that the terms of the 1998 bond issue call

for the board to pay back " expenses " first. The $1.4 million paid to

litigation attorneys is considered an expense and it was taken out of

Amity's budget, which is paid by the three towns.

Sousa's law partner, Stone, is the attorney for a tri-town committee

investigating alleged fiscal misappropriations at Amity.

" What has been taking place over at Amity is a shell game, a Ponzi scheme

that only the executives of Enron could be proud of, " Sousa said.

Goldblatt said he believes Amity school officials misled him and the other

first selectmen, as well as the public.

" I feel deceived by what they (Amity board members and bond consultants)

originally told me about how they believed the bond debt had to be paid down

before the towns could receive any money, " Goldblatt said.

Amity School Board Chairman Lohne and Vice Chairman Duplinsky

said former School Board Chairman Santo Galatioto was among officials who

had misled the board about how the bond funds were being spent and about how

the debt on the bond had to be paid down first.

Galatioto, who is still on the board but resigned as chairman in July, said

Tuesday if bond money was transferred to pay legal bills, he was not aware

of it.

" We're going to have to do the right thing, and if that means returning

money to the towns, then that's what I would favor doing, " Lohne said.

Amity officials said most, if not all of the money, was paid to former Amity

litigation attorney Carole Briggs of Glastonbury, who was removed from

handling the district's lawsuits last year by a Superior Court judge who

determined she had violated rules of professional conduct.

©New Haven Register 2002