Trouble in Thomaston continues with new FOI complaint

On June 20, Ralph Celone, chairman of Thomaston’s Planning and Zoning Commission, filed another complaint with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) against the town. It is the latest in a slew of complaints filed by Celone, resulting from a spat between him and the Town’s Board of Selectmen. Celone and Thomaston’s First Selectman, Ed Mone, went on the record with Inside Investigator to share their perspectives on the matter.

Celone’s latest complaint alleges that the Board of Selectmen acted improperly when it censured him at a May 21 board meeting for a zoning violation that Celone was found to have committed. Celone’s complaint argues that he was improperly notified of his censure prior to the meeting and that he was not allowed to properly defend himself.

“The lack of clarity on this agenda appears designed to hide their actions rather than give notice to the public,” reads Celone’s complaint. “As such, the BOS denied both me and the public at large the ability to participate fully in open and transparent government.”

Celone has accused the Board of Selectmen of “prejudicial and discriminatory treatment,” and believes the town to have exhibited “total disregard of their FOI obligations and my constitutional right to due process.” Celone believes he is being unfairly punished as the result of a year-long personal dispute between him and Town Selectman Mike Burr. Mone claimed that Celone’s narrative is false, insisting that the town has done nothing wrong, and said that Celone’s FOI campaign has been damaging to the town.

“In short, I believe it’s causing damage to a lot of people and things are occurring as a result,” said Mone. “I just think that it’s creating a great deal of havoc here.”

Celone’s Recent Censure and Relationship with Burr

Celone said he believes the way the town “railroaded him” during his censure process all stems from an incident that occurred between him and Burr, who is Chairman of Thomaston’s Opera House Committee, last summer.

“Last summer, Burr brought a proposal to do this Opera House work in front of the Planning and Zoning Commission, and he called me offline and asked ‘Hey can we do this without a public hearing?,’” said Celone. “I said, ‘It’s a big project, I think the public should know.’”

Celone said that Burr was “not happy” about Celone’s denial of this request, but became truly incensed after Celone denied the Opera House plans that Burr presented before the Zoning Commission.

“We had a whole list of stuff that was missing, and he actually threw a temper tantrum,” said Celone. “I wasn’t at the meeting, I was dialed in on the phone and the Vice Chairman described this to me, but he actually picked up a pile of papers and threw them in the Vice Chairman’s face.”

Celone said that Burr “has been on a vengeance trip” ever since, and believes that his subsequent treatment by the Board of Selectmen has been a result of it.

Celone’s recent censure stems from a back-and-forth zoning enforcement dispute between the town’s zoning commission and a Thomaston resident, Nancy Griswold, regarding a collection of junk cars located on Griswold’s property. Griswold filed three FOIL requests and three follow-up requests for the purpose of evaluating the zoning commission’s enforcement actions over a two-year period. The Town of Thomaston unsuccessfully filed a petition for relief with the FOIC in October 2022, calling these requests “ vexatious .”

“So that woman, Nancy Griswold, has been filing FOI complaint after FOI complaint with the FOI commission to be a pain in the butt, I guess,” said Celone. “I get sucked into some of it because I’m the chairman.”

Celone said that Griswold’s warpath against the zoning commission led her to file a zoning complaint against him on April 12, upon her discovery that he himself had trucks with expired registrations on his property. Upon being notified of the zoning violation, Celone promptly admitted to it, calling it “an oversight” and promised to correct it as quickly as possible. He requested the Town’s Zoning Enforcement Officer and Tax Assessor visit his property to document any issues, and a visit was set for April 16, by which date Celone states he had corrected the violation.

The visit was instead postponed to May 16, and in response to the violation, Celone was censured by the Board of Selectmen at a May 21 meeting. Celone said that he was improperly notified of his censure by the town, and took issue with the fact that his censure was listed on the agenda only as “Land Use Enforcement Activities.”

“Had I not already been there, I would not even have known that my situation was a topic for discussion at this meeting,” said Celone in an email sent to the Board of Selectman on May 21. “Anyone who wanted to speak on my behalf would have no idea that they should attend this meeting.”

In the email, Celone stated that the item should have been clearly identified on the agenda, that he should have been given individual notice, and that “the matter probably should have been discussed in executive session unless I personally requested public session.”

“On this basis alone the whole discussion is invalid,” reads Celone’s email. “In addition it was inappropriate because the Board of Selectmen had me tried, convicted, and sentenced and I was never allowed to speak on my behalf – depriving me of my right to due process.”

In the email, Celone summarized the censure process, stating that Mone “spoke at length about his opinion regarding the already remediated violations,” and that Burr “spoke at length about ethics and integrity,” before a unanimous vote to censure him was made. Celone also took issue with the fact that Burr failed to recuse himself from the vote, citing a previous conflict of interest that he admitted to having on behalf of their prior history.

The conflict of interest Celone referred to was the fact that Burr originally intended on accompanying the Town’s Zoning Enforcement Officer and Tax Assessor on their visit to his property to assess the zoning violation.

“Through documents obtained under various FOI requests, I learned that Selectman Mike Burr was to accompany the town employees on this visit,” wrote Celone in one of his emails to the Board. “This is NOT standard procedure for a zoning violation. I also obtained a document under FOI quoting Ed Mone, First Selectman, saying “Mike Burr has decided to recuse himself from tomorrow’s site inspection because of a conflict of interest”.

Celone said he tried to speak up at the meeting to point this out, but was told to refrain from speaking.

“I tried to bring up the point that having Mike Burr participate in the proceedings while there was a conflict of interest documented by the First Selectman himself would violate my right to a fair and impartial hearing,” wrote Celone. “However, I was cut off by the First Selectman and not allowed to speak.”

Mone said that the listing of Celone’s censure on the agenda was consistent with previous agenda items on the topic of zoning violations, and said that despite the history between Burr and Celone, the board did nothing procedurally wrong.

“The exact same wording was used on a previous agenda,” said Mone. “So the minute he saw that on our agenda, he knew what it was about.”

Mone went on to say that the Thomaston Town Attorney advised him in the past to use the same language on each agenda in an effort to remain consistent. Mone also said that Burr’s refusal to recuse himself was a non-issue.

“Well listen, Selectman Burr and Mr. Celone have had altercations in the past over planning and zoning,” said Mone. “The point is, the selectmember didn’t do anything inappropriate in that meeting, all of what happened in that meeting was driven by me.”

Of Celone’s complaints that he had a lack of due process, Mone said that the Board allowed him to speak at the end of the meeting just as it would for anyone else.

“He spoke at the end of the meeting which is what I allowed him to do,” said Mone. “He wanted to interrupt our proceedings, he never allowed it in his own commission meetings, he didn’t even necessarily allow for public comment, which we always do.”

Furthermore, Mone described Celone’s censure as the “least consequential” punishment that the Board could have provided him, and said it did not rise to the level of requiring a public hearing.

“Had we tried to dismiss him, there would have been a public hearing, but we did no such thing, we simply chastised him,” said Mone.

Mone also said he believed it necessary for the Board to take action.

“As the Board of Selectmen, we were required, quite honestly, to act on this,” said Mone. “Anything short of that would have looked like just sweeping stuff under the rug, and that’s not transparency.”

Mone ultimately validated the censure of Celone by saying that Celone’s zoning violation, as head of the Zoning Commission, represented an affront to the commission’s validity.

“He damaged the credibility of himself and his commission as a result of those kinds of actions,” said Mone. “In fairness to him, when they were brought to his attention, he did come down and rectify them.”

The Leak that Led to Celone’s Censure

Around the time of Celone’s censure, he discovered via FOI request how Griswold obtained the license and registration numbers of his trucks. Celone said the trucks are located near a barn on the rear of his property, secluded from public view, and that Griswold claimed to have discovered the lapsed registrations via aerial photographs of Celone’s property. Celone found this to be highly unlikely.

“My yard is heavily wooded, you can not see my yard from my road,” said Celone. “She said, ‘It’s a 1979 Plymouth, blah, blah, blah’ and I said, ‘I can’t even tell that from the picture, and I own the car.’”

Celone’s FOI request revealed that the numbers were not in fact transcribed via aerial photograph, but were instead given to Griswold by the Town’s Tax Collector, Cassie Gorman.

“The town tax collector gave out my license plate numbers, and under Connecticut general statutes, those are protected information,” said Celone. “They’re not supposed to give it out.”

According to Section 14-163 of the Connecticut General Statutes, town assessors and tax collectors are forbidden from providing any license plate or registration numbers to third parties. Celone was incensed not only by the fact that this information was provided to Griswold, but flabbergasted by the fact that Griswold received the information without a written request in violation of Town Hall policy. Celone was also upset at the fact that he was not notified by Thomaston town officials of the data breach when it occurred.

“There is no request – there isn’t even an email request! Cassie just released my protected personal information without any documentation!,” read an email Celone sent to the Board of Selectmen on May 31. “More incredibly, she notified Ed Mone of this transgression a week later on April 18th and no one from the Town Hall has notified me of the data breach.”

The email asked for Gorman to be issued a letter of severe reprimand and be immediately terminated. Mone replied that he admonished Gorman upon her admitting to her error, but implied that the only error she had committed was not following the town’s FOI procedure.

“The Tax Collector did come to me to admit her error, that being that she did not follow the Town’s FOI procedure,” replied Mone. “At that time, I admonished her for not following the prescribed policy. I made her aware of the policy which she indicated that she would follow should any other requests for information from her office be requested in the future.”

Mone said in his response that he consulted with Thomaston Town Attorney Mike Rybak regarding the information provided, and told Celone that Rybak advised him that the information itself was Grand List information, thus making it public information. Grand Lists are indexes of all taxable property in a town, which are used by municipalities to calculate municipal tax rates.

Gorman declined to comment on the matter, instead referring Inside Investigator to Mone. In his interview with Inside Investigator , Mone clarified that the information released was in fact not privy to public disclosure, referring to the plate and registration numbers as “information that really should have been redacted.”

Mone said, both in his reply to Celone’s email and in his interview, that Gorman could not be terminated as she was an elected official, not an appointed one. Mone said that he consulted with Rybak on the matter, who told him that there was no punishment clause included in the General Statute that would be applicable, and believes the town acted in the correct manner. He also highlighted the fact that Gorman not only notified him of the error within “a day or two” of making it, but that she self-reported it to the Department of Motor Vehicles’ Legal Services.

Ultimately, Mone said that the repeated FOI requests are costing the town “time and treasure.” Mone noted how the FOI complaints will require him and other employees to spend time out of the office at the FOIC, impeding the ability of town officials to do meaningful work.

“Is it appropriate at this point, when he was simply chastised by a board?,” said Mone. “I don’t know.”

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