Norwalk DTC does a Monday night Kumbayah

Correction: DTC District C member John Hauter’s name was misspelled in an earlier version.

NORWALK, Conn. – The dust seemed to settle Monday on two recent Norwalk Democratic Town Committee controversies.

The DTC’s monthly meeting Monday addressed both Warren Peña’s situation in District D and the aftermath of last month’s vote to expand the membership to 55 members come January:

• An election will be held to see who will fill the DTC vacancy in District D, given that City Clerk Donna King notified DTC Chairman Ed Camacho that she doesn’t want it even though she is now co-chairwoman. Peña will be a candidate.
• Camacho opened the door to have a “re-vote” on the expansion at the next meeting, asking members for opinions via email over the next week to see if there is a need.

The idea of expanding the DTC membership reportedly created a “heated conversation” at last month’s DTC meeting. There were objections that it had been on the agenda for discussion, not a vote. Some members abstained because of that issue.

Camacho said Monday that given that there were some “ill feelings,” he wanted to know if there was a consensus that it should be taken up again. Only three people spoke up – Councilwoman Phaedral “Faye” Bowman said yes, it should be voted on again, as did another member. John Hauter, who abstained last month, said re-voting would be fine but as far as expanding the DTC goes, “I’m cool with it now.”

“It seems to me that it’s a good idea to enlarge the DTC,” Camacho said. “I think the majority of the folks in the DTC would like to see that happen, but I also know that there are some members who perhaps think that is unnecessary or counterproductive. I don’t understand the argument that it is counterproductive but I didn’t feel at the last meeting there was a sufficient enough conversation that it was a bad idea … I think it’s important to understand why people would oppose an idea that for me on its face is a good idea.  I would like to make sure that we as a body at least understand the views of the people that would prefer the DTC remain as it was previously.”

He encouraged members to send him emails so he can gauge whether it should be put on the agenda for the next meeting as an action item.

“I think it’s important that this time around we run as a team, that we don’t have a bunch of campaigns out there, we have a collective organization so that we can all support each other, and hopefully regain control of the Common Council as well as get Harry Rilling elected mayor again,” Camacho said.

The issue with Peña made the press last week, although it stems from him relocating to District B last summer in an effort to unseat state Rep. Bruce Morris. It took District D nine months to attempt to fill the vacancy, although Democratic Registrar Stuart Wells informed Camacho, Peña and then-District D Chairman Vinny Mangiacopra that Peña was no longer on the DTC because he had registered in B.

Mangiacopra resigned as chairman in November. Last week, District D voted to make King and Joe Tamburri co-chairmen. That meant King automatically assumed the vacant seat and became a DTC member, according to DTC rules. Peña called the move a “pure vendetta” spawned from his lack of support of King for various roles including city clerk or for Rilling (he supported Mangiacopra in the 2013 Dem mayoral primary).

Neither King nor Tamburri were at Monday’s DTC meeting. Mangiacopra got up to give a District D report.

“I think it has become more of a contentious issue than it needed to be frankly, but we are where we are. … It’s kind of put us in a little bit of a state of flux, confusion. I think it all goes back to the rules,” Mangiacopra said, after giving a synopsis.

“I don’t feel confused at all,” District D member Lynne Moore replied. “It’s a matter of interpretation as to which persons might feel confused, but the bottom line is Warren did move out of D and he moved into B so he could challenge Bruce Morris. Therefore he registered and he changed his registration and therefore his seat was up. But lots of other stuff, and politics etc. We did not act on that in the D. Now we have acted on it and Donna has already indicated that she is not, while she is a co-chair, interested in being on the town committee. She is the (city) clerk so she indicated she would not like to do that. So we now have a seat open.”

Peña said last week that King had orchestrated his removal so she could be on the DTC. Once she was elected chairwoman she automatically took the vacant seat, under DTC rules.

“(King) emailed me within 24 hours of that meeting and indicated that she was resigning from the DTC to that extent that she is a member of the DTC because of that rule. So there is now a vacancy on District D,” Camacho said.

He asked Peña if he wanted to say anything.

“I think I’ve said enough,” Peña replied.

“The hope and the expectation is that at the next (District D) meeting that seat will be voted on,” Camacho said, suggesting that Peña and Marilyn Robinson would be the candidates.

“My reason for wanting to enlarge the DTC was in part to avoid these problems,” Camacho said.

When Wells sent the email about Peña in May, “I guess in part because I was new to the DTC, I didn’t fully appreciate the significance of that and now I do,” Camacho said. “It didn’t connect in some way so that is why months went by and I guess there was no declaration that that seat was vacant. Now we know.”