Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the town council reopened the application period for the interim parks and rec commission seat because the candidates who applied could not be considered for the seat since they cannot serve on two commissions. While this is true, the council also decided to reopen the period because Councilmember Deborah Fudge had not received an interim parks and rec application from an applicant and the town counsel team and city manager had suggested reopening the application period to give folks the chance to apply if they encountered that issue and because the town council could not come to a consensus on the other remaining applicant, Angelica Nunez, for the interim parks and rec role.
The article has been updated to reflect these facts.
After much back and forth discussion and deliberation among Windsor Town council members, the council finally approved several commission appointments at their most recent meeting on Feb. 17.
For the Windsor Senior Citizen Advisory Commission Michael Bertucceli will serve on the landmark seat, Catherine Hanron will serve a term ending in 2024, returning commissioner Lisa Renee Trumbly will serve a term ending in 2022 and DayleBushkotter will serve a term ending in 2024.
“I moved here a year ago after I retired from owning an insurance agency. I’ve been coming out here since 2013 and fell in love with the city. Since I am a senior and I know their needs and wants I think I would be very well suited for the position and I am on the Rotary and chamber of commerce,” Hanron said of her desire to serve on the Senior Citizen Advisory Commission.
Ben Lehr will take the one vacant Windsor Planning Commission seat and Heather Cullen will serve on the Windsor Public Art Advisory Commission.
The council didn’t fill all of the seats though, and applications are now being sought for one interim seat on the Windsor Parks and Recreation Commission and for one interim seat on the Windsor Senior Citizen Advisory Commission.
The deadline to apply is March 10.
The interim seats will expire once the newly elected council member makes his or her recommendation for appointments to the mayor, according to Windsor Town Clerk Maria De La O.
While the process of appointing new town commissioners may seem simple enough, it’s not.
As a general law city where the office of the mayor is an elected position, the mayor — with the approval of the council — makes all the appointments to the board’s commissions and committees, however in this case the town is asking that the council agree to a process where council will provide their appointments to the mayor and the mayor will move the appointment forward.
At the Feb. 3, 2021 council meeting, Mayor Dominic Foppoli recommended appointments to the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Planning Commission, the Public Art Advisory Commission and the Senior Citizen Advisory Commission, however, he also supported the applicants recommended by Councilmember Debora Fudge.
At the same time the council also hadn’t received enough Senior Citizen Advisory applicants, so they first extended the application deadline to Feb. 10.
The other situation that has complicated the appointment process is when former Councilmember Bruce Okrepkie left office in December of 2020.
Because there are only four council members seated at present, and each council member appoints their own commissioners, they can’t seat new commissioners until the fifth council person is seated, following a special election in May.
To work around this snag council directed town staff to start a recruitment process for an interim seat on the Parks and Recreation Commission and for an interim seat on the Senior Citizen Advisory Commission.
The council was initially set on having Bushkotter serve on the interim Senior Citizen Advisory Commission seat and Cullen would serve a regular term on the commission, however, council thought the Public Arts Advisory Commission would be a better fit for Cullen, who currently works at the Windsor Performing Arts Academy and is heavily involved in the Windsor arts scene.
As Cullen was shuffled to the Public Arts Advisory Commission, Bushkotter was given the regular commission term on the Senior Citizen Advisory Commission, thus creating a vacant interim position.
Lehr, Cullen and Angelica Nunez applied for the interim seat on the Parks and Recreation Commission and while Foppoli, Fudge and Councilmember Sam Salmon supported Cullen and Lehr for the role, one person cannot serve on two commissions at the same time.
Resident Aley Anderson attempted to apply for the interim parks and rec seat, but she did so by emailing her application to Councilmember Fudge, who did not receive the email with the application.
“I would like to just let you all know that I’d like to be considered for the parks and rec commission for the temporary spot. I missed the original application deadline, because frankly I was unaware that the position was even open and after that I had spoken with Deb Fudge and let her know that I was very interested in applying for the temporary positon. I emailed her my application and I’m not sure if the town council received it or not so I just wanted to come on in this meeting and introduce myself and let you all know that I really think that I can do a great job on the commission,” Anderson said during the public comment period.
Councilmember Fudge said she had never received Anderson’s email with her application.
“I have just searched my iphone and sometimes there’s glitches with town emails, I’ve searched my ipad, my iphone and my mac and I didn’t receive it. It would fall on me as a mistake that the rest of you didn’t receive it,” Fudge said during the meeting.
The Town attorney said it would be up to the council to decide if they wanted to extend the application period in order to consider Anderson or other folks who may have tried to turn in applications.
The attorney and Windsor Town Manager Ken MacNab made it clear that it would not be good to now accept Anderson’s application outside of the application period since that would be out of normal protocol.
“The council has established a process of making appointments. That process involves advertising to the community that you can apply for these positons, it gives the applicant some predictability on what’s going to happen, it gives the community some confidence because they can see the council following an open and transparent process and it gives the council some certainty on how applicants are going to come up,” MacNab said. “I head a couple things tonight that potentially are of concern to me — the idea of accepting a nominee who didn’t get their application in, the idea of swapping from parks and rec commission to planning commission — I’m not concerned because those aren’t things that can’t ultimately be done, but I do get a little nervous when council starts entertaining — and I know nobody suggested this — accepting nominations outside of our application process. Long way of saying it, if the council is interested in considering Aley as a candidate or appointing Scott to parks and rec commission rather than the planning commission my recommendation would be to do that within our process meaning that you go ahead and give direction to staff to open the recruitment for those boards where you want to add or swap people and give those candidates a chance to apply and follow our normal process and then come back and make the appointment.”
Counsel said by opening up another recruitment period it would also open it up to others who may want to apply.
Mayor Dominic Foppoli suggested potentially reopening the parks and rec interim recruitment for a week.
Councilmember Esther Lemus and Vice Mayor Sam Salmon weren’t as in favor of extending the application period because as Lemus put it, council wouldn’t want it to seem like favoritism.
“We already had an open application period and applicants already submitted their applications,” Lemus said.
Foppoli asked MacNab what to do since they were deadlocked.
MacNab said they do have other candidates to consider and one option could be to consider the candidates that they have and if they don’t find consensus on a candidate then, “maybe that provides the justification to open up and extend the application period again.”
So council then decided to pursue that route, but they could not come to a consensus on the parks and rec candidate.
Councilmember Lemus voiced support for Nunez, however, the council could not come to a consensus on this, and the other candidates (Ben Lehr and Heather Cullen) for consideration were inelligibile since they had already been appointed to a commission seat.
“I was going to nominate Ben Lehr, but since he’s no longer in the running and neither is Heather, then I would nominate Angelica Nunez who has applied and did apply in a timely fashion,” Lemus said. Salmon seconded that, but again council could not come to a consensus, so they did what MacNab suggested and decided to reopen the application period until March 10.
“Given the way the structure here with the government code and with the deadlock, my recomedation would be to open it (the application period) back up because you would be here back and forth until the deadlock is broken… The reasonable thing to do would be to open it back up.” the town counsel said.
The council was also interested in garnering more applicants, consequently creating another recruitment for the one interim parks and rec seat.
Even though Lehr can’t serve on two commission seats he said he believes he has the experience and the know-how to serve on the Windsor Planning Commission.
“I’m hoping to elevate my service to the community and give my shot at the planning commission. I think my experience on the others would lend itself well in addition to my professional experience in the insurance world and I have a particular interest in making sure we’re building wisely in regard to where and also hardening against wildfire,” Lehr said.
Foppoli thanked Lehr for wanting to go for the trifecta of town commissions (in addition to applying for the parks and recreation and planning commissions he had also applied for the Public Art Advisory Commission).
To fill out an application for the interim Senior Citizen Advisory Commission seat, or for the interim Parks and Recreation Commission seat, visit: https://www.townofwindsor.com/64/24528/Committees-and-Commissions?fbclid=IwAR2yxpFGv7zz_T0FGYGY0dh4schQJINeGfVGm1l9IMf3MTD8xjKhzXRTHzI .
