Report by Paula Antolini, June 21, 2020, 6:55AM EDT
(File photo ©2017 BETHEL ADVOCATE /Paula Antolini.)
When the in-person budget voting by citizens was cancelled in more than 100 towns across Connecticut, due to CT Governor Ned Lamont’s executive orders for safety during the COVID-19 coronavirus, it set off a firestorm of complaints from citizens.
Many individuals, including residents in Bethel, felt their basic rights were being denied, namely, the right to vote on the town and school budgets, when it was handed over to the Bethel Board of Finance to decide, which has a majority of Democratic members. The vote ended up being 4-3 to pass the budget.
Among other things, the approved Bethel budget included raising taxes and giving salary raises to government and school employees, as much as a $5,000 raise to Dr. Christine Carver, the Superintendent of Bethel Public Schools, for example. These increases are during the corona virus pandemic quarantine, when businesses are struggling or had to close, numerous people are on unemployment or losing jobs, and some homeowners are in foreclosure and will lose their homes.
Town officials also did not allow a mail-in vote, drive-up vote, or delaying the vote to a later date, as many citizens were requesting. Issues became apparent that a double standard was in effect, as citizens voiced their opinions heavily on social media, commenting that large businesses were allowed to have numerous individuals shop in their stores, and Bethel Pubic Schools had hundreds of cars driving to the school campus three times a week to obtain free food, for example, but a drive-up vote, in the same manner, was being banned.
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Bethel Board of Finance member Cynthia McCorkindale filed a federal complaint on May 28, 2020, against CT Governor Ned Lamont’s administration, over an executive order banning in-person voting on town budgets. Read the complaint in full HERE. Cited in the complaint were the Bethel Board of Selectman, First Selectman Matthew Knickerbocker, and Bethel Health Department Director Laura Vasile.
McCorkindale’s complaint read, in part:
“It is my contention that, by denying us our right to vote on our annual budget, CONNECTICUT GOVERNOR NED LAMONT, by issuance of Executive Orders 7c, 7i, 7s and 7hh, has, in effect, modified, albeit temporarily, our TOWN CHARTER, which, by statute, can be changed only by an appointed
Charter Revision Commission and subsequent referendum. Therefore, Governor Lamont has, more importantly, usurped the right to vote from the taxpayers of Bethel, and from every municipality in Connecticut that operates under a Town Meeting form of government and Town Charter.
THE BETHEL BOARD OF SELECTMEN are complicit in their failure to challenge these Executive Orders, further demonstrated by their total lack of intercession or advocacy on behalf of the voters to appeal or request additional information or permission for any alterations to the Executive Orders. Attached are communications between myself and the First Selectman, Matthew Knickerbocker, as well as Facebook posts where he emphatically states that he does not intend to push back or “insult” the
Governor by asking the same question repeatedly. (EXH 9)
“What Mr. Knickerbocker did not disclose (to me or anyone else for that matter), was that he had issued a signed, notarized statement dated March 27, 2020 (EXH 1), declaring his intention to follow the Governor’s Executive Orders AND uphold the Bethel Town Charter. I believe that the two commitments are mutually exclusive and CANNOT be kept simultaneously – in other words, one can either adhere to the Governor’s Executive Orders OR uphold the Town Charter, but not both.”
McCorkindale also wrote:
“The local HEALTH DEPARTMENT Director, Laura Vasile, is also complicit as it is her rendered opinion (EXH 2), on which the Board of Selectmen based the decision to not hold an in-person referendum.
“This decision was contradictory to the process outlined by the State Board of Education, which laid out a “safe” program for the distribution prepared meals, called “The Emergency Feeding Program,” which has been in operation for several months already, without incident. People queue up in their cars. The meals are prepared in advance in the school’s kitchen. The meals are then packed up by volunteers and then hand-carried to the recipient’s car and placed inside. All wear masks and gloves.
“Similarly, the Bethel Registrars laid out a proposal for safe in-person voting. These procedures were nearly identical to those proposed by the State Board of Education.
…”NOTE: (EXH 3). The memo from the State Board of Education regarding the “Emergency Feeding Program,” contains no identifying information on the Department of Education’s memo, nor is there any signature or date. This protocol does not appear to be co-sanctioned by the State Department of Health.”
McCorkindale referred to the BOF vote, in part, here:
“On Thursday, May 14th, the Bethel Board of Finance majority voted to approve a nearly 1% tax hike, with a $1.5 million of new spending. After nearly seven years on the Board of Finance, it has been my experience that, time after time, if the voters believe that a proposed budget increase is wrong, they will vote it down at the machine vote. This is the built-in safety that disperses power and thus obviates partisan decision-making on the annual budget.
“The Governor’s Executive Orders denying this right not only disenfranchised the voters of Bethel, but also several other Board of Finance members, like myself, who struggled with having been given what we considered unconstitutional authority that we neither anticipated nor wanted. As for my participation, I chose to ‘abstain’ from the vote, citing that I did not believe it was a legal proceeding.
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On June 20th McCorkindale voiced her objection live in an NBC broadcast, along with another angry voter, saying Lamont’s actions were, “Taxation without representation.” View video of broadcast HERE and McCorkindale’s comments begin at mark 1:28.
The NBC report indicates McCorkindale said “her town abided by the executive order and her board had the final say on the budget.”
“Voting is not a privilege. Voting is a right that we have as citizens of the United States of America,” said McCorkindale, “and once you start tampering with that core, I think it’s dangerous, and I think it’s wrong.”
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