Fireworks Erupt After Selectmen's Meeting

It's not unusual for members of the Board of Selectmen and public to chit chat after a selectmen's meeting before they go their separate ways.

But the end of Wednesday's selectmen's meeting didn't involve exchanges of pleasantries - instead, David Sturges was furious with First Selectman Ken Flatto and let his displeasure be known.

Sturges, who is trying to dismantle a historic cottage behind Carolton Chronic Convalescent Hospital on Mill Plain Road before the winter, believed Flatto had pledged to seek $20,000 toward the dismantling, which Carmen Tortora Jr., owner of Carolton, agreed to match, giving the "Gardeners Cottage Committee," which consists of Sturges, Melanie Marks and Jeanne Harrison, $40,000 toward the estimated $75,000 project. The cottage, built in 1840, is scheduled to be moved to the Eunice Postol Recreation Center's parking lot, acquired by the town for $1 and leased to the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce.

The cottage, one of the few examples of 19th-century Gothic Revival architecture around today, had been used by the gardener and landscape architect of one of Sturges' relatives. Sturges' relatives about 60 years ago donated land to the town that would become Sturges Park.

But a $20,000 funding request to help dismantle the cottage wasn't on Wednesday's Board of Selectmen's agenda, and Flatto said during the meeting, "I do not believe in this environment we can ask for taxpayer money. I'm willing to ask the town for money, but only as a last resort."

After the meeting, Sturges lit into Flatto, and while not everything he said could be heard over other conversations, Sturges at least once compared the $20,000 sought for the cottage to the $350,000 that the town was spending to build an athletic field on Hoyden's Lane.

After the meeting, Marks said Flatto last month told her and Sturges that he would seek $20,000 from town boards to go toward dismantling the cottage. She said Tortora, who has put plans to expand Carolton on hold for at least six years because of the cottage, wanted it dismantled before the winter and agreed to let Sturges, Marks and Harrison store sections of the cottage on Carolton's property until they raised money to move it to the Eunice Postol Recreation Center's parking lot.

"He told us at this meeting he was going to try to get $20,000," Marks said, adding that she and Sturges expected the funding request to be on the selectmen's agenda. "We went into the meeting [on Wednesday] assuming that was what was going to be laid on the table and we were going to have to go to the Board of Finance and then have to go to the RTM [Representative Town Meeting.] It was completely opposite of what we were led to believe and told last month...He totally acted like he never said that."

Flatto said during the meeting that he was seeking state grants for the project, and, if he got the state grants, the question of the town providing $20,000 was a moot point. Flatto never said in Wednesday's meeting that he had pledged or promised to seek $20,000 for the cottage's dismantling.

Marks said she doesn't believe it will be possible to dismantle and store the cottage before the winter if Flatto doesn't seek $20,000 from the town because Tortora's $20,000 was a matching offer and the Gardeners Cottage Committee would be without the $40,000 it had expected.

She said the only way it would happen without Flatto seeking $20,000 from town boards is if the contractor agreed to do it for free upfront, with the expectation of receiving money once fundraising began, but Marks said that wasn't realistic. "They have families and bills like the rest of us," she said. "If we don't have the funds from Carmen and the town, we can't get it down before winter."

Marks said the $20,000 would lead to having the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce in a much more visible setting. She said the Gardeners Cottage Committee didn't believe it could start fundraising for the project until after town boards agreed to the idea.

During the selectmen's meeting, Patricia Ritchie, the Chamber's president and CEO, said people who have lived in town for 30 years have no idea that the Chamber of Commerce is on the second floor of a building at 1597 Post Road. "It would be a huge, huge bonus to the Chamber of Commerce to have a building like this," she said.

On Wednesday, the selectmen discussed a proposed lease between the town and Chamber that would enable the Chamber to have its office and a visitors center in the cottage after it's rebuilt in the northeastern corner of the recreation center's parking lot. The lease calls for the Chamber to pay the town $600 a month to occupy the cottage, Flatto said.

Selectman James Walsh didn't want to vote on the proposed lease Wednesday because he wanted to see a site plan and an agreement by which Harold Fischel, a local developer who owns property behind the rec center, would expand the rec center's parking lot by 40 to 60 spaces as long as he could use half of the additional parking spaces for three years. Flatto estimated the value of that work at $50,000.

"I like the idea. I just want to see the whole plan," Walsh said. "I just want to see the parking layout, and I want to see the agreement [with Fischel] and then I'd be ready to vote for it."

It seemed unusual for the town to be discussing the proposed lease, which would be for 10 years and require approval from the RTM, since the town didn't own the cottage. Flatto said at Wednesday's meeting that Tortora still owns the cottage. The lease is contingent on the town acquiring the cottage from Tortora for $1.

The selectmen ultimately decided to postpone their vote on the proposed lease.