Pomfret BOS Meeting: Full Video and Ongoing Questions from Residents
If you want to keep up to date with what's going on in Pomfret, you have to make the time to attend one of the two monthly meetings. If you can't make the 8:00 AM Board of Selectmen meeting every month, you have another opportunity to attend the 6:30 PM Board of Selectmen meeting, like the one that took place last night. If you can't make either of the two Mondays that we usually hold meetings on, you're out of luck until they agree to offer the meetings virtually, which I am hopeful will happen in the future. I will continue to attend as much as I can, record, share, and request virtual access for our residents. Watch last night's meeting (UNEDITED) here:
I first want to acknowledge that I KNOW the Board of Selectmen has a very difficult and thankless job. Kudos to them for stepping up and being willing to do it day in and day out. It goes far beyond what we see here in these meetings, and I acknowledge this. I am also thankful that despite our obvious differences, we are able to sit in the same room and listen to each other, as difficult as that may be.
I won't lie, it was extremely difficult for me to listen to the explanation given last night as to why the comments were shut down on our town's official social media page. My body literally has a physical reaction when I am forced to sit and listen to something from our elected officials that is simply not true. The claim that the comments were shut down because of threats, profanity, or anything remotely close was NOT true. I have screenshots of each post that was made throughout the entire solar vote time, as well as screenshots of the comments there, then comments removed, comments shut off, comments turned on, etc. This is why I felt so strongly about writing my complaint letter to the Board of Selectmen in the first place. It's concerning that we pay for a social media specialist, yet the Board of Selectmen is now claiming they shut down comments because of profanities and threats, and citing that they don't have the time or personnel to monitor the comments for misinformation. We DO have the personnel, and she's paid with our tax dollars. It's NOT her job or the town's job to fact-check comments from residents. It's called freedom of speech for a reason. I can totally see having a written, clear social media policy regarding how comments should be treated IF they contain violence, profanity, or threats, but that did not happen here, and there was no adopted policy. I suggest the Board of Selectmen create and adopt a social media policy to stick to in the future, and I hope they revisit their actions on how this was handled.
If you watch the full meeting video, you’ll hear me speak twice during the two designated public comment periods. Again, I requested virtual meeting access for our citizens. It's proven to increase participation, and the board has discussed the low participation many times just this past year. Why not give it a try? I emphasized how disappointing it was to see the town’s actions regarding the Facebook page, especially alongside the fact that our Fire Chief sent not one, but two emails to the entire department urging support for the solar proposal. I also brought up that only the boards and commissions that supported the solar were broadcast on social media and in the public while other commissions that were against it, as well as volunteer firefighters against it, were silenced, along with the opposing views in the comments section of our town's official Facebook page.
Lastly, I brought up how troubling it is to see so many negative firsts this past year. Last night, we were told we received a letter from OPM, which is Connecticut's Office of Policy and Management, stating Pomfret is in non-compliance status for our failure to get our 2024-2025 audit completed on time. We've had 3 extensions and have no anticipated completion date. This was also the first year, at least since Leigh has been on the Board of Education now serving his third term, that the Board of Education had to go to the town for more money because our budget was upside down. The budget was upside down even with the additional $55,319 that was restored after the Board of Finance tried to take it at a special meeting, voting on it against the current statute of that time. Our ARPA Committee has NO meeting minutes to be found anywhere documenting how they discussed and voted on spending the over $1.2 million that Pomfret received.
I requested the Board of Selectmen add something like Joe Courtney is doing this week, hosting a coffee with Joe at EASATCONN, or like our new superintendent is doing later today, hosting an ice cream social at We-Li-Kit to meet the community and have some less formal chats with the residents here. This, along with virtual meeting access, would be sure to increase participation and public trust. What do we have to lose?
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