Ethics Board

RTC Submits Documents to Ethics Board in Moynihan Investigation 

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The local political group that distributed an endorsement letter at the center of an ethics complaint into First Selectman Kevin Moynihan last week turned over an original version of the letter to the appointed municipal body investigating the matter. The Republican Town Committee also submitted to the New Canaan Ethics Board printed copies of what it described as email correspondence and a list of those to whom the letter was sent, according to documents received Feb. 23 by the Town Clerk’s office and available there in a public file. Viewable here on the town website, the complaint alleges that Moynihan violated the town Code of Ethics in multiple ways when he described the Board of Education race to letter recipients while urging them to vote for the Republican slate. It was filed by Micaela Porta the day before Election Day.

Alexandra Van Nes

Ethics Board To Seek Additional Information from RTC in Moynihan Investigation

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The appointed town body investigating an ethics complaint lodged Nov. 1 against First Selectman Kevin Moynihan will seek additional information from the local political group that distributed an endorsement letter at the center of the matter, officials said Tuesday night. Members of the New Canaan Ethics Board said during a regular meeting that they will ask the Republican Town Committee for a sample of the envelope that Moynihan’s letter was sent in, as well as any other printed material included in it. “Those things might help with our interpretation of the thrust of the letter,” Ethics Board Chair Tucker Clauss said during the meeting, held at Town Hall. “And the other thing that I know we were talking about before, the list of [those] to whom the letter was mailed.

Board of Selectmen

‘Courtesy Is a Two Way Street’: Emails Reveal New Details in Ethics Investigation

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Hours after New Canaan’s highest elected official publicly denied her request for a meeting date change, Selectman Kathleen Corbet contacted the chair of the Ethics Board suggesting that the denial might have been retaliatory, documents show. An ethics complaint already had been filed against First Selectman Kevin Moynihan at the time of the Board of Selectmen’s Nov. 16 meeting. There, Moynihan said honoring Corbet’s request to move a scheduled meeting in December back one day would “be a very bad precedent.”

According to an email that Moynihan sent to the selectmen about 45 minutes prior to the meeting—an email that forms part of an ethics investigation file available at Town Hall—the first selectman said Corbet’s request “may be an Ethics Code violation.”

“We know when our Regular meetings of BOS are well in advance and we should act accordingly,” Moynihan said in the meeting. “Sometimes you may have to miss a meeting if you have personal business that is more important that the Town’s.”

Corbet made Moyhinan’s denial public during the selectmen meeting, and then emailed Ethics Board Chair Tucker Clauss just after, saying, “Not sure if this is retaliatory … I requested a date change over 30 days away from this meeting which would keep it as a Regular meeting.

Government

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

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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.

Around Town

Ethics Board: Further Investigation Warranted in Complaint Against First Selectman

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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.