Defendant Lays Out Basis for Appeal in Metro Center Case

The attorney for Gary Weddle - appointed as the town's wetlands compliance officer on the Fairfield Metro Center after First Selectman Ken Flatto booted the town's Conservation Department off the project in December 2007 - filed a motion Friday asking the state Appellate Court to hear a case that he lost at the Superior Court level.

Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Richard Arnold ruled July 6 that Weddle was illegally appointed as the wetlands compliance officer because he wasn't under the supervision of Town Conservation Director Thomas Steinke. Arnold also noted that the town already had a wetlands compliance officer, Marisa Anastasio, and the town couldn't have two wetlands compliance officers.

Anastasio, who has since left for a job with Greenwich's Conservation Department, was an employee of Fairfield's Conservation Department at the time, and Flatto had prohibited the Conservation Department from being involved in the Metro Center, a decision that was endorsed by the town's Inland Wetlands Commission about three months later.

Flatto removed the Conservation Department after Kurt Wittek and Aaron Stauber, managing directors of Blackrock Realty, LLC, the private developer on the site, claimed the department was holding up the project and threatened to sue the town. The idea of barring the Conservation Department from the Metro Center project came from Blackrock Realty, and Flatto didn't allow Steinke to defend himself, nor did Wittek or Stauber appear before the town's Inland Wetlands Commission with their complaints about the department.

Charles Fleischmann, Weddle's Shelton attorney, who is being paid by the town because Weddle is considered a town official, said in a motion filed Friday in Bridgeport Superior Court that he intends to raise the following questions on appeal:

1) Did the trial court err in deciding that all the plaintiffs had standing based solely on their status as either personal or real property taxpayers?

2) Did the trial court err in deciding that Weddle could not be appointed as a wetlands compliance officer since the Conservation Department had a staff employee who was a wetlands compliance officer? Fleischman intends to argue that this claim was never pled by the plaintiffs and that Arnold had sustained Weddle's objection to the plaintiffs' attempt to amend their complaint to include this claim.

3) Did the trial court err in deciding that Weddle could not be appointed with the same title of wetlands compliance officer when the town already had a wetlands compliance officer because of language in a single definitional section in the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Regulations of the town of Fairfield?

4) Did the trial court err in deciding that the defendant, and each and every other consultant or employee retained by the Inland Wetlands Commission to carry out its duties, was, and will be, required to be under the general supervision of the town's Conservation director?

5)  Did the trial court err in deciding that the Inland Wetlands Commission had no power to appoint more than a single wetlands compliance officer?

6) Did the trial court err in deciding multiple issues not alleged in the plaintiffs' complaint of which the defendant had no notice or opportunity to be heard, and which issues could affect the power of the Inland Wetlands Commission, which was not a party to the case?

7) Did the trial court err in deciding and ordering that Weddle be removed as the wetlands compliance officer on the Fairfield Metro Center?

The Inland Wetlands Commission on Thursday voted to approve a motion whereby the town would file an "amicus brief" in support of Weddle's appeal and also approved a motion, which the commission chairman and at least one other commissioner admitted they did not understand, that said Steinke would have general supervision over Weddle but that Weddle would report directly to the commission and not to Steinke. The commission's motion characterized Weddle as an "agent," rather than as a wetlands compliance officer. Lastly, the commission on Thursday decided to ask Flatto to reinstate the Conservation Department on the Fairfield Metro Center project, though Saxl said he would make that request to Flatto "to the extent it's administrative."

George Bisacca, the attorney for the plaintiffs, already filed a motion in Bridgeport Superior Court to terminate the "automatic stay" that comes with an appeal of Arnold's ruling.

Construction on public portions of the Fairfield Metro Center was expected to begin at the end of this month and includes moving and capping 100,000 cubic yards of contaminated material and removing PCBs from the property.

The Inland Wetlands Commission has jurisdiction over the work because the 35.5-acre Metro Center property, at 21 Black Rock Turnpike, is adjacent to Ash Creek. The Conservation Department's role in the project, before the department was removed, was to ensure that conditions of approval in the Inland Wetlands Commission permit were met, and Steinke brought what he considered a major violation to Flatto's attention six days before Flatto removed the department from its oversight role.