Moynihan: Ethics Board’s Decision Not To Dismiss Complaint Outright a ‘Perversion and Politicalization’

New Canaan’s highest-elected official last week voiced criticism of an appointed town body’s finding that further investigation is warranted into a complaint that he violated the Code of Ethics in the run-up to November’s municipal election. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan in a Jan. 5 email to the Board of Selectmen, Town Council, Board of Finance, Audit Committee and Board of Ed chair called the complaint lodged Nov. 1 by a town resident “spurious.” In it, the complainant, Micaela Porta, said that Moynihan “using his position as first selectman violated several sections of the town Ethics Code when he sent an undated letter to all residents of New Canaan prior to the town’s Nov. 2, 2021 municipal election,” according to a citation that the Ethics Board made at its Jan.

Ethics Board: Further Investigation Warranted in Complaint Against First Selectman

An appointed body voted unanimously Tuesday night to adopt a resolution saying that further investigation is warranted into a complaint that New Canaan’s highest elected official violated multiple provisions of the town’s Code of Ethics in the run-up to November’s municipal election. 

The Ethics Board has not yet made a determination regarding the complaint lodged Nov. 1 by Micaela Porta, a town resident identified by the appointed body’s chair, Tucker Clauss, as president of the New Canaan chapter of the League of Women Voters. [Note: Porta contacted NewCanaanite.com Wednesday morning to clarify that she filed the complaint personally and not on behalf of the League of Women Voters, as spelled out in the Ethics Board’s resolution, full text here.]

Porta as complainant asserts that Moynihan “using his position as first selectman violated several sections of the town Ethics Code when he sent an undated letter to all residents of New Canaan prior to the town’s Nov. 2, 2021 municipal election,” Clauss said during the meeting, held in the Town Hall Meeting Room. (The full text of Moynihan’s letter is printed at the end of this article.)

Specifically, Porta in the complaint “asserts that the letter mischaracterizes the voting rules at issue, that it was ‘misleading to voters seeking to understand how our municipal government works’ in general and in the then-pending election, and that the letter thereby granted preferential treatment to candidates preferred by the respondent,” Clauss said, citing the Ethics Board’s resolution.