Report by Paula Antolini, May 11, 2020, 3:30PM EDT
“It is absolutely clear that we are going to proceed without a referendum” said First Selectman Mathew Knickerbocker at the May 4, 2020 Board of Selectman online (Zoom) meeting, regarding allowing citizens to have a vote on the proposed 2020-21 Bethel Budget.
Yesterday we asked First Selectman Knickerbocker for his reaction to Board of Finance member Cynthia McCorkindale’s official complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, against Connecticut Gov. Lamont and Bethel Board of Selectmen members, First Selectman Matthew Knickerbocker, Selectman Richard Straiton, Selectman Paul Szatkowski, and Health Department Director Laura Vasile, for violation, that read, “CONNECTICUT GOVERNOR NED LAMONT is in violation of SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT as a result of a series of EXECUTIVE ORDERS which usurp THE RIGHT TO VOTE from the taxpayers of Bethel, by incrementally restricting and ultimately depriving us of our right to vote by referendum on our annual budget.”
Knickerbocker’s comment was a simple one-sentence answer, he said, “Bethel officials have complied with the governor’s executive orders, as required by law. This complaint should be directed to the office of the governor.”
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We also reached out to Selectman Richard Straiton, Selectman Paul Szatkowski, and Health Department Director Laura Vasile but we have not heard back yet regarding their comments on the McCorkindale complaint.
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Knickerbocker also stated, at the May 4th BOS meeting, that businesses and the Bethel municipal center would start opening up gradually on May 20th according to the Executive orders placed by Governor Ned Lamont.
Knickerbocker stated that they will use name badges for people who enter the municipal building in order to do “Contact Tracing” should anyone be discovered later to have contracted an illness. “It’s a different kind of security. It’s not so much for the same reason they do it in the schools but for Contact Tracing which the State Department of Health is now doing,” Knickerbocker said, “If somebody were to become sick we would be required to know who had gone into the building and who had gone into what offices.”
Selectman Szatkowski asked First selectman Knickerbocker if he was planning on using “a device to measure temperature” for people entering the building. Knickerbocker replied, “I’m waiting for some advice from the Department of Public health on that.”
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Knickerbocker said he had gotten an email from CT Secretary of State Denise Merrill.“This is the secretary of State’s plan for state elections,” Knickerbocker said, “It’s ten pages long and very detailed.” …“It outlines the secretary’s vision of how we can open polling places and do it safely so people are not put at risk.”
The last topic Knickerbocker spoke about was the referendum and budget. He said, “If you have been following the governor’s executive orders, the one that was issued in the middle of March, 7i, it pretty firmly said, just for ‘towns that have a town meeting form of government’ like ours, with automatic referendum, town meetings and referendums. That order was pretty firm, that it required us to pass a budget without a town meeting, without a referendum. Then there was some confusion with the subsequent order that came out a week and a half later, that appeared to open the door to referendums.
They asked for clarification and the governor released Executive order 7HH, Knickerbocker said, “and it very clearly closes the door. It said while the restrictions are in place, for the safety of poll workers and voters alike, town meeting form of government will not have a referendum this year.”
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