Alexandra Van Nes

Ethics Board: ‘Factual Errors’ in Moynihan’s Statement on Investigation

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Contrary to what New Canaan’s highest elected official asserted in a public statement that also contains factual errors, the head of the appointed town body that took up an ethics complaint lodged against him led a fair and nonpartisan investigation, its members say. Tucker Clauss, while serving as chair of the Ethics Board, “made extreme efforts to go right down the middle” in following up on a complaint lodged last November against First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, according to Ethics Board member Robert Schott. “When we went to talk to the complainant, he [Clauss] took somebody from that side of the aisle with him,” Schott said during the Ethics Board’s regular meeting, held Tuesday night at Town Hall. 

“When he went to talk to the recipient, he took somebody from that side of the aisle with him. And we gave equal time to both sides of the equation. … For the record, I think it was done fairly, openly and in a nonpartisan fashion.”

Schott cited a letter that Moynihan sent to NewCanaanite.com after the Ethics Board voted 4-1 in favor of a final “Report and Determination” at its May 12 special meeting, with Schott himself casting the dissenting vote (the 15-page document can be read in full here). 

In that report, the Ethics Board detailed its monthlong process of discussing the complaint and gathering up information prior to concluding that further investigation was warranted, as well as the communications, additional documentation, public discussion and findings that followed. 

In the end, the Board concluded that the letterhead Moynihan had used on a widely distributed endorsement letter backing Republican candidates for the Board of Education last fall appeared “more like the letterhead of an official document than a letterhead serving as a mere identifier and that an appearance of impropriety was caused by its use, particularly when the Letter was to be sent to new residents or new voters who would likely have had little experience with Town officials, Town politics or official town letterhead or correspondence.”

Yet the Code of Ethics, as written, lacks a “sufficiently clear standard” to cite Moynihan for a violation on that basis.

Alexandra Van Nes

Ethics Investigation: Moynihan Bemoans Personal Legal Fees, News Coverage

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New Canaan’s highest elected official on Tuesday bemoaned an ethics complaint lodged against him last year, as well as personal legal fees he incurred in fighting against it and local news coverage of an appointed municipal body’s public meetings as it investigated the matter. The complaint lodged Nov. 1 with the Ethics Board—accusing First Selectman Kevin Moynihan of violating the town’s Code of Ethics by using the authority of an elected office to write a letter endorsing Republican candidates for the Board of Education in the run-up to the municipal election—“has not gotten a lot of press except by Mr. [Michael] Dinan who has managed to make several articles out of something that initially was confidential,” Moynihan said during a regular Board of Selectmen meeting. “But also, conveniently, Mike manages to attend meetings at night that he otherwise wouldn’t attend, so this has been a bit of a show. I think the whole thing has been rather disappointing and certainly a disservice to me.

Election 2021

Ethics Board Focuses Moynihan Investigation on Use of Town Resources, Letterhead

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The appointed body that is examining whether New Canaan’s highest elected official violated the town’s Code of Ethics in the run-up to last year’s municipal election is focusing its investigation on two areas. The Ethics Board is looking at whether First Selectman Kevin Moynihan used public resources in working on an endorsement letter that would be mailed out to residents prior to the Nov. 2 election, and whether the letterhead on the document itself constitutes a violation of the Code. During its March 8 meeting, Ethics Board members said they’ve concluded that some aspects of the complaint against Moynihan do not amount to violations (such as resources used for the letter’s distribution) or fall outside of the Code itself (such as the wording in the letter itself). Information gathered by the Ethics Board since receiving the Nov.

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.

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.