Trustees Accused of Violating Open Meetings Law After Private Budget Talks

Some trustees and residents allege Port Chester's Republicans violated the state's open meetings law when they drafted budget amendments privately this past weekend.

The three Republicans and one conservative met privately on Saturday and Sunday, drafting 80 changes to the tentative budget.

Trustees Bart Didden, Sam Terenzi and John Branca met on Saturday, while Trustee Joseph Kenner joined Terenzi and Didden for a Sunday meeting. On Monday, hours ahead of a scheduled public meeting and budget adoption, the four trustees sent their proposed changes to the board's three Democrats.

The changes weren't available to the public.

"We received these 80 changes to the proposed budget at about noon today," said Trustee Daniel Brakewood, a Democrat.

Didden defended the private meetings.

"I asked Mr. Brakewood if he wanted me to call him so we can get everyone together...he declined," Didden said.

"Well, probably because he didn't want to evade the open meetings law, but I can't read his mind," Mayor Dennis Pilla retorted.

Because each meeting included only three trustees, the gatherings did not meet the physical definition of a quorum – a meeting of four trustees would be a majority of the board. But village Democrats and some residents accused the Republicans of intentionally meeting only three at a time, and said it doesn't matter if the meetings were split.

"The spirit of the open meetings law talks about the fact that the public has a right to hear the budget process of the board," Village Attorney Tony Cerreto said.

The meetings sparked more than an hour of bickering Monday, pushing back budget discussions on a night when firefighters, police officers and their supporters gathered en masse to protest proposed cuts to both departments. The firefighters and police officers were there to protest $240,000 in proposed cuts to their departments, including budget amendments that would leave positions for officers and firefighters vacant.

For some residents, the meetings were reminiscent of previous eras in Port Chester politics, when meetings were little more than formalities and decisions were made in private.

"Maybe it's a good budget, maybe what they did was good, but how they did it was absolutely wrong," said resident Bea Conneta. "We don't want to go back to the backroom politics. What I can't understand is you've had all those meetings over the weeks...why didn't those things come up? Why did they have to be solitary?"

Resident John Reavis blamed both the Republicans and the mayor, saying Pilla should have prevented the private meeting.

"You just mentioned that four people met to discuss and make changes as they saw fit to the budget and the others were left out," he said. "I don't know how in the world you're going to be able to do an honest job."

The board's Republicans denied doing anything wrong, saying they were doing what was necessary to trim the budget during tough economic times.

"We put our heads together and spent 12 hours on this thing to avoid cutting police, fire, etc. These guys are so worried about how they were out of the loop," Terenzi said. "The mayor, who is supposed to be the leader of this gang, let it go until last Wednesday.

"We spent a lot of time over this weekend trying to bring down the [tax] rate. We can't even investigate how we lost $300,000 worth of parking meter money, and [the mayor is] worried about three guys meeting in a room? This is bull."

The discussion "won't end tonight," said Brakewood, who called for an investigation to determine whether the Republican trustees broke the law.

Regardless of what an investigation eventually reveals, residents weren't happy when they learned of the meetings.

"Gentlemen, stop the madness. It's getting ridiculous," said Richard Abel, a resident and publisher of the Westmore News. "Coming up with changes to the budget over a weekend, the day before its due, is not fair to the people here. We don't even have a copy of what the changes are, only you do. Is that open and transparent?"

Follow Port Chester Patch!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PortChesterPatch

Twitter: http://twitter.com/PChesterPatch