The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted to appoint a longtime resident with a unique history in New Canaan to a prominent municipal committee.
Roy Abramowitz in 2013. Credit: Michael Dinan
The selectmen voted 2-0, with one abstention, to appoint Roy Abramowitz to the Audit Committee. Formed in 2014, the volunteer body helps oversee financial reporting for the municipal government and school district.
First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Nick Williams voted in favor of the appointment. If Abramowitz’s appointment is supported by New Canaan’s legislative body, he will fill a vacancy left by founding Audit Committee member George Maranis, who resigned.
Selectman Kathleen Corbet abstained from the vote, saying, “I’ll just say that this has nothing to do with the candidate but I do think that the process of learning candidates, particularly for the Audit Committee, I would say the same for the Board of Finance, where two bodies have to go through the process of reviewing the candidates—presumably and ideally a pool of candidates—and then reviewing those and then going through the process of approval through both the Board of Selectmen and the Town Council, we haven’t gone through that process with respect to this open position in the Audit Committee. And so I’ll abstain on this particular vote, because I think that while I’m not disagreeing about the candidate, what I do think is that the process needs to go through with respect to a pool of candidates, particularly a diverse pool of candidates. This is probably one of our only boards or commissions where there is no gender diversity right now in that particular board, and so I’d like to see that the pool of candidates includes gender diversity. And not to say that any one of those individuals wouldn’t be qualified. And so we go through that process with respect to both the Board of Selectmen and the Town Council. So I will abstain from this particular vote because I think we need to go through a broader process.”
Moynihan said in response, “I will just say, Kathleen, that Roy Abramowitz is someone who actually went back and recommended that we create an Audit Committee years ago, and he is a fine CPA and someone who has been wanting to serve the town for a long time. Nobody else in the past five years has asked to join the Audit Committee, so I just think someone who has been dedicated and is highly qualified for the position is someone we would like to give the opportunity to serve.”
The appointment for the balance of Maranis’s term would go through Dec. 1, 2025, Moynihan said.
Abramowitz “has been working with the Audit Committee through this past audit,” he said.
“He has the support of all members of the Audit Committee,” Moynihan said.
It wasn’t immediately clear why Moynihan, who sets the Board of Selectmen’s agenda, felt the need to fill the open seat on the Audit Committee now—there have been open seats on the Utilities Commission, for example, since Moynihan took office in 2017.
Nominees for appointment to open seats on municipal boards, commissions and committees typically come from the all-volunteer Democratic and Republican Town Committees. Abramowitz’s wife, Janice E. Schaefer, is on the RTC, according to that organization’s website.
Abramowitz in the past has served on New Canaan’s Public Tree Board. He ran for Town Council as a petitioning candidate in 2013 and lost, according to Connecticut Secretary of the State records. In 2015, he served briefly as treasurer on petitioning candidate Michael Nowacki’s ill-fated campaign for first selectman.
The Town Council must approve Abramowitz’s appointment. Those attending Tuesday’s selectmen meeting via videoconference included Town Councilman Penny Young.
New Canaan Police arrested Abramowitz in 2000 and charged him with breach of peace, according to court records. In September of that year, neighbors of Abramowitz accused him “of making allegedly obscene and threatening gestures towards them and their guests, when they were traveling in their car to their daughter’s wedding.” Specifically, they alleged that Abramowitz “extended both middle fingers and gave them a ‘menacing look,’ ” and “accused Abramowitz of following them in his car, tailgating their car, and ‘swerving all over the road.’ ” He denied the allegations.
In 2013, Abramowitz was arrested in a road rage incident at South Avenue and Farm Road, according to an article published by Hearst Connecticut. Charges were dismissed in both cases, Connecticut Judicial Branch records show.