Our Town

In my last blog posting on January 12, I wrote that the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) housing task force approved their report to the First Selectman, subject to minor revisions. The vote was unanimous.

After nearly two years of regular meetings and hard work (the first meeting was February 22, 2010), a group of people with different perspectives came to consensus on a series of recommendations for increasing our affordable housing stock.

My blog posting was about the fact that the group was able to come to consensus, given a rocky start.

Reporting on one housing task force meeting that took place in May 2010, I wrote in my blog posting: “The committee couldn’t come to consensus on the meaning of consensus.” I was quoting a comment I overheard just after that meeting.

My January 12  blog posting received one comment from someone calling himself John Dough. “So what does it say,” the commentator asked on January 13, referring to the content of the housing task force report.

This blog posting is an initial response to that comment since I did not yet respond and feel I owe John Dough a response of some kind.

I deliberately did not refer to the content of the report on January 12. I wanted to wait until the report was in final form, with all changes made.

The task force met last Tuesday to finalize the changes and review a power point presentation that highlights  their recommendations.

Tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall Meeting Room task force members will officially present their report to the First Selectman, unveiling their recommendations with a power point presentation.

I will wait to discuss the details of these recommendations until after the report is officially presented to the First Selectman tomorrow evening.

I will note, however, that a centerpiece of the report is the recommendation that the town establish “a self-sustaining Community Development Partnership (CDP) to coordinate all phases of the Town’s affordable housing strategy.” This partnership would include a local housing trust fund. Recommended inclusionary zoning provisions allow for one revenue source for the trust fund.

The report makes a distinction between “affordable” housing, where there is no governmental financial support to tenants, and “subsidized” housing which involves government subsidy.

The content of this report will be the subject of my Greenwich Time column next Sunday, February 5.

At 9:55 p.m. tonight (Monday, January 11), members of the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) housing task force came to an easy consensus on the report they will formally present to the First Selectman at the task force’s January 30 meeting.

The unanimous 13-0 vote, with 2 members absent and 1 participating by speaker phone, was to approve the report subject to any additional editing of a non-conceptual nature that may be absolutely necessary to correct any possible “fatal flaws” prior to the official presentation.

Tonight’s meeting that lasted just under 2 hours consisted of a page-by-page editorial review of the draft report as presented by committee member Mark Schroeder. All the work focused on clearer wording. There were no conceptual changes to the draft.

Housing task force members have been meeting regularly for nearly 2 years. Their first meeting was on February 22, 2010. Appointed by the Board of Selectmen, their charge was to address the housing action items outlined in the Town’s Plan of Conservation and Development that was adopted by the RTM in June 2009.

The POCD recommended that the First Selectman create 5 task forces to follow up on the action items in the Plan. These task forces were for the downtown, parking and transportation, town properties, housing, and a plan implementation committee that receives the recommendations of the other committees.

These POCD task forces were expected to be of no more than a 2-year duration and to issue final reports with recommendations based on the POCD action items.

The work of the housing task force is remarkable. Although I observed most of the early meetings, and then attended sporadically over this nearly 2-year period, I had not been to a meeting in recent months. Tonight I was struck by the hard work these task force members have done and how well they have come to work together as a committee.

“The committee couldn’t come to consensus on the meaning of consensus,” I wrote in my blog posting of May 30, 2010. I was quoting a comment overheard after a meeting of the housing task force in its early days when nearly the entire meeting was devoted to discussion of procedural issues that members could not agree upon.

The task force was made up of diverse members from different backgrounds with a variety of viewpoints, some of whom faced a steep learning curve when it came to affordable housing. Initially, the road was a rocky one.

Under the leadership of task force chairman, Nancy Brown, members have done extraordinary work in coming to consensus on their housing recommendations. Committee member Mark Schroeder might be singled out for special commendation in pulling together the report.

“Terrific job,” said many of his fellow committee members. Sam Romeo, a task force member who serves on the Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners, cited Schroeder’s “invaluable service to the committee.”

Schroeder, receiving a round of applause, told his fellow members that they did all the work. “I’m just a scribe,” he said.

I would say, Kudos to all the members of the housing task force.

Let’s hope few RTM members buy the argument that a “no” vote on the $20.2 million bonding proposal for Project Renew is good for Nathaniel Witherell. Contrary to Budget Overview Committee Chairman Bill Drake’s assertions on the op-ed page of today’s (Sunday, December 11, 2011) Greenwich Time, a “no” vote Monday night will in fact herald an end to this town treasure.

The proposed renovations are critical to the nursing home’s future. And the time to move forward is now. In all likelihood, there will not be another such opportunity.

In the words of Bob Richardson, who chaired the RTM’s special committee on Nathaniel Witherell: ” This is our last bite of the apple. We will not get another chance.”

Richardson was among the thirty-five people who spoke at the BET’s October 17 public hearing on Project Renew. All but four of the speakers voiced overwhelming support for the project. Drake was one of the very few naysayers.

As Drake points out in his op-ed article, the nursing home loses money on its Medicaid residents. It is, therefore, essential that Nathaniel Witherell maintain a healthy residential mix that includes a significant number of long-term private pay residents as well as short-term rehab patients. These revenues are critical.

Unless the Project Renew physical upgrade is undertaken, Nathaniel Witherell will not remain competitive with other area facilities in attracting the private pay residents and rehab patients that are essential to its long-term economic viability.

Nathaniel Witherell now has the required Certificate of Need from the state. It has a realistic business plan and is ready to move forward. This renovation project consists of very basic improvements to the physical plant that will keep the facility competitive. It is much scaled down from earlier proposals.

The proposal now before the RTM represents the culmination of a process that began nine years ago, in 2002. During this long journey, every aspect of Nathaniel Witherell operations have come under intense town scrutiny, including by the RTM’s own special committee chaired by Richardson.

In April 2007, the RTM voted overwhelmingly to give Nathaniel Witherell the go ahead to renovate as a town-owned facility. It was agreed that any change in governance, such as turning the town-owned nursing home into a not-for-profit entity, could be considered at some future date after the renovation, if warranted.

Following that overwhelming RTM vote, the Nathaniel Witherell board proceeded in good faith with plans for Project Renew.

The RTM has already thoroughly aired and discussed the governance issue, and voted on it. Tomorrow night’s vote should not be about re-visiting that 2007 vote. But Drake’s argument brings it in by the back door, or maybe by a side door.

While Drake finds that a “no” vote will allow for other capital projects that he feels should be higher in the town’s order of priority – a legitimate point of view in making an individual decision to vote against the bonding proposal –  the most significant and desired consequence of a “no” vote in his view will be to get the town out of the nursing home business.

A “no” vote, according to Drake, is the only way to set in motion a process that will force Nathaniel Witherell to privatize and become a not-for-profit entity that he would like to see modeled after Greenwich Hospital.

In some magical unexplained way, such change in ownership is supposed to result in a different business plan that will lead to the nursing home’s greater financial viability and long-term sustainability.

How that business plan would differ from the current one is unclear. Also, there is no compelling reason to believe that the creation of a new, as-yet undefined, entity will serve the town, or the residents of Nathaniel Witherell, better than does the current five-star rated and highly praised town-owned facility that we all know and love.

What is clear is that a “no” vote will bring everything to a grinding halt, send everyone back to the drawing board and set the stage for Nathaniel Witherell’s probable downward spiral, ultimately at far greater cost to the town.

Would the town choose to go into the nursing home business today if it did not already own a nursing home? Of course not.

But the fact is that in 1903 Robert Bruce, a great benefactor to our town, conveyed to the Town of Greenwich nine acres of land with four buildings on Parsonage Road. This property was conveyed to the town to serve as a municipal hospital for contagious diseases, and the property is deed restricted for this hospital purpose.

In 1912, Mrs. Nathaniel Witherell donated funds to build a town Tuberculosis pavilion on the Parsonage Road property. Originally known as the Greenwich General Hospital, the Parsonage Road facility was later known as the Municipal Hospital as distinct from the Greenwich Hospital.

What we know as Greenwich Hospital opened at its original location on Milbank Avenue in 1906, and was then known as the Milbank Avenue Hospital. It later moved to its current location on Perryridge Road, where it opened its doors in the autumn of 1917. Greenwich Hospital, from the beginning a private nonprofit entity, has its origins with the formation of the The Greenwich Hospital Association in March 1903.

Nathaniel Witherell, with origins also in 1903, is located on deed-restricted property that Robert Bruce donated to the town, and has a public sector history, in contrast to Greenwich Hospital.

Under the town’s stewardship, the Bruce and Witherell legacies have proven to be of immeasurable benefit to Greenwich residents. The Nathaniel Witherell is an outstanding, first class nursing home. Only a “yes” vote will preserve this precious legacy.

The state’s Reapportionment Committee last week finally produced the new assembly district map. No surprises where Greenwich’s three districts – 149, 150, 151 – are concerned.

It’s same old, same old.

Last summer the Reapportionment Committee held public hearings throughout the state seeking input on a new districting plan. Greenwich attorney Edward Krumeich, who is a Democratic State Central Committee member, presented a plan for Greenwich at the public hearing in Norwalk.

The plan, drawn up by Krumeich and Democratic Town Committee member Joe Kantorski, was the only plan presented for Greenwich.There was no competing plan presented as part of the public process.

While both prominent Democrats, Krumeich and Kantorski were not acting in any official Democratic capacity. They were presenting a non-partisan citizens’ plan for a more sensible districting. Much work went into this plan.

The plan, which followed the zoning map and RTM districts, was consistent with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development that recognizes the importance of town neighborhoods and villages. It sought to keep residents of communities together with the drawing of new lines. Past practice has been to split up neighborhoods.

The plan proposed by Krumeich and Kantorski put forward assembly district boundaries based on three geographic zones that run from border to border: the 150th district in the shore zone; the 151st in the central zone; the 149th in the backcountry zone.

This would have reunited central Greenwich, Chickahominy and Riverside as neighborhoods in the shore zone. The communities of Cos Cob, Glenville and Pemberwick would have been reunited in the central zone. The emphasis was on maintaining the integrity of communities, not party registration. However, by keeping neighborhoods together, the plan would have also allowed for more politically competitive districts.

Predictably, the plan was ignored, as has been the case in past decades. Going back many years, former Democratic Selectman and longtime BET member, Frank Mazza, worked on a plan that brought together neighborhoods, as did Democratic National Committee member, Mary Sullivan. I myself presented such a plan to the state legislature with the redistricting after the 1990 census.

The truth of the matter is that all three Greenwich assembly districts are accepted by Democrats in the state legislature, as well as by Republicans, to be solid Republican districts. Just as other districts in the state are accepted by both parties to be solid Democratic districts. And it is understood that the parties don’t meddle with each other’s districts.

Greenwich hasn’t elected a Democrat to the state house in a century, not since 1912. And it’s likely to stay that way, by design. For another hundred years? Well, at least for the next ten years.

It’s just a shame that the public hearing process seems to count for so little.

” This is an important step forward for the town.”

So said Board of Estimate and Taxation Chairman Steven Walko this evening after a unanimous BET vote to approve $20,205,000 as an additional appropriation with an accompanying bonding resolution that will enable The Nathaniel Witherell to move forward with its much needed Project Renew, years in formation.

The BET vote, coming after nearly an hour of discussion, met with applause from the audience.It was indeed a critical step forward in ensuring the nursing home’s survival and securing its future.

Walko thanked the Nathaniel Witherell board and staff for all their hard work as well as thanking the Board of Selectmen, RTM members and all those who attended the BET public hearing in October. Walko expressed the wish that Nathaniel Witherell “should be with us for decades to come.”

The BET did, however, place five conditions for release on the Project Renew appropriation, which will now require BET receipt and approval of:

* the construction documents and updated construction cost estimates

* validation of the business plan

* construction management method to be a construction manager acting as agent for the      town

* updated environmental reports

* final construction bids

Nathaniel Witherell Board Chairman David Ormsby said he was “perplexed” by the second condition that calls for “validation of the business plan.”  He indicated that Nathaniel Witherell has a business plan in place that it has worked on for nine months. He said he would have thought any such validation should be against some standard such as consistency with the construction documents and cost estimates.

Walko assured Ormsby that such was the intention and that BET approval of the application would be an approval not only of the bonding resolution, but also the  existing business plan.

After the BET vote in favor of Project Renew, Lloyd Bankson, a five-year member of the Nathaniel Witherell Board, thanked the BET, particularly its outgoing members, for all their hours of work.

Where thanks are due, I would say the community also owes a special thank you to Nathaniel Witherell Board Chairman David Ormsby for his tireless work over many years in shepherding this project over numerous hurdles.

And now it’s on to the December 12 RTM vote, hopefully the last major hurdle to clear.

Word has it that the Board of Selectmen plans to hold a special meeting this coming week for the purpose of appointing a new tenant commissioner to the Board of the Commissioners of the Greenwich Housing Authority. According to authoritative sources, this appointee will likely be Natalie Queen, one of the two outgoing Democratic members of the Board of Education.

The Greenwich Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners consists of 5 members appointed by the Board of Selectmen. By statute, one of the five commissioners must be someone who receives assistance in a housing program directly administered by the Housing Authority, typically a resident in one of the Authority’s developments.

Queen would replace tenant commissioner Laura Murphy, now serving her 2nd 5-year term on the Board of Commissioners. Murphy, who recently purchased a condo in Stamford, is no longer a Greenwich resident (see my Sunday column 9/25: http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Rutgers-Commissioner-mother-reaches-her-dream-2186140.php ).

Although HUD Regulation 964.415.3 permits a tenant commissioner to serve out a term when no longer living in public housing, Town Attorney Wayne Fox considers Murphy to have created a vacancy on the Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners based on Section 8-41 of the Connecticut General Statutes, not because she has moved out of public housing, but because she no longer lives in Greenwich.

The Board of Selectmen, acting as the town’s appointing authority, fills the vacancy created by Murphy’s move to Stamford. However, Murphy continues to legally serve until the Board of Selectmen appoints someone to fill the vacancy.

Section 8-41 of the Connecticut General Statutes addresses the appointment of commissioners to the Housing Authority. The 2011 legislature amended this statute (see Public Act 11-203: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/act/pa/2011PA-00203-R00HB-06461-PA.htm ). Effective October 1, tenants will have a greater statutory say in the selection of a tenant commissioner, including the option of an election.

Exactly what the process would be in Greenwich under the new legislation is not entirely clear, and its implementation will require some thought. There is no jurisdiction-wide resident organization that encompasses all the developments, but rather separate resident councils for the different developments.

What is clear, however, is that after October 1 the Board of Selectmen will be required to take resident recommendations into account to a greater extent than is now the case when selecting a tenant commissioner. At the very least, they must consider every tenant that is recommended by any of the resident councils. And the resident councils must be informed when there is a vacancy to be filled.

The rush to appoint a new tenant commissioner this week appears to be driven by the statutory changes that will take effect at the end of the week.

While Queen may very well be the best candidate for the job, there has been no opportunity for other candidates to come forward. Neither has there been any consultation with the Housing Authority, or the resident councils, regarding this appointment. There has been no time to inform the resident councils that a vacancy exists.

And if Queen is appointed to the Housing Authority this week, she must step down from the Board of Education before her term ends in a couple of months as state statutes prohibit a Housing Authority Commissioner from serving in any other public position. It doesn’t seem that there is an urgency to her appointment.

This rush to appointment makes it appear as if there is an attempt to avoid the tenant input that will be required after October 1.

Since this is an appointment to an unexpired 5-year term that is still in the first year, the appointee is likely to be on the Board for a long time. Given that October 1 is less than a week away, it might make more sense to have the new tenant commissioner appointed after October 1 and in accordance with the new legislation.

Murphy, whose service over the past 5 years has been exemplary, could continue to serve until she is replaced, as permitted by statute. This would allow time for the Housing Authority and the Board of Selectmen to develop policies and procedures for the selection of tenant commissioners going forward that are consistent with both the new statutory requirements and the process currently in place for appointments to all town boards and commissions.

There is still time.

In today’s column (Sunday 9/18) I referred to Lee Whitnum’s press release in which she claims the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union turned her away 3 times when she approached them about suing  the Town of Greenwich and the First Selectman for allowing an Israel Independence Day celebration and a Bar Mitzvah to take place on town property.

I had made an inquiry to the CCLU to verify this when I began working on my column. By the time I received a response from the executive director, Andrew Schneider, it was too late to incorporate into my column.

Here is the CCLU response: We have no record of contact from her or of any request from anyone about the issues she raises.  The American Civil Liberties Union has a long history of defending religious freedom, including the right of equal access to public buildings for all organizations, whether religious or not.