A long time ago in a public school educational system far away, young students were taught to read source documents. These days the abundance of information makes it somewhat difficult for the discerning student to identify source documents, and shortcuts to information creep in. For instance, just because something is written about here, doesn’t mean that it is the primary source. That’s what links are for.

So when I wrote about the public financing of campaigns yesterday, I linked to source documents to back up my point about questioning the use of public campaign financing on races that are unopposed. Good habits die hard though, and in perusing those source documents I uncovered another story.

What if an employee of the Norwalk Public School District ran for an elected office and won. During that employee’s campaign, they hired people to work on the campaign and paid them a wage for doing so. Let’s say one of those people who were paid wages, also were an elected official. And that person was elected to serve on a board that voted on employment issues for the Norwalk Public School District.

The right thing to do would be for the person who was paid a wage by the employee of the school district to recuse themselves from any discussion or vote on employment issues affecting that employee. Other wise it’s fair to� question that there’s an appearance that there would be a bias in judgment favoring the employee. Of course there can be bias favoring employees without financial relationships, and there’s really nothing legally one can do about that. But the laws are pretty clear that if there’s a financial relationship, then the letter of the law must be followed.

But did it? On 12/1/2008,� Bruce Morris’ publicly financed election campaign paid BOE member $100 in wages (pg25). Bruce Morris’ employment with the BOE was retained after other employees were released in an effort to reduce BOE operating expenses. These BOE employment decisions were discussed starting in May of 2009.

The recent rhetoric by Migdalia Rivas against the transparent communication efforts moved forward by newly elected BOE members certainly take on a new meaning now don’t they? If Rivas took part in discussions concerning the human relations officer, the position Bruce Morris holds with the Norwalk Public schools, and voted on it, then Rivas and the BOE face an interesting question of compliance with the Norwalk ethics code.

Why does a lineup of important political flunkies in a letter to the editor remind me of CLUE? For those uninitiated, CLUE is the Hasbro board game centered on solving a crime by entering various rooms of a mansion and asking questions of fellow players about clues, or in the CSI world evidence chain of custody. Sadly Hasbro has done away with Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, the revolver and the lead pipe in one of those marketing decisions that attempt to rebrand classics with the usual disastrous results.

Meanwhile, Governor Rell in Hartford with a paring knife, has recommended that the legislature does something with that pesky public financing of campaigns law. You know, the one that was successfully attacked as unconstitutional via lawsuit by the Green Party in Federal Court with a Lawyer. Defending the public financing of campaigns, Attorney General Dick Blumenthal with the appeal and a tap dance.

Rell’s plea to reform the law, and strip money from it has rallied local Dems, sort of left behind the whole Norwalk on the move towards transparent government thing, to stage a public meeting. At least according to a letter to the editor published in The Hour.

So on Monday, Dec. 7, at 7 p.m., there will be a public meeting in the Community Room at Norwalk City Hall at which State Reps. Peggy Reeves, Bruce Morris and Chris Perone will opine. But according to former Common Council Candidate, Kate Tepper, where is State Senator Bob Duff? And doesn’t State Rep Larry Cafero warrant a mention? Like the dude might be Governor one day, so where does he stand on this campaign issue, in the community room with a budget deficit?

The City of Norwalk calendar does not speak of this meeting in the Community Room. So how can this be a properly noticed public meeting of something?

But here’s the really, really good question about public money used for campaigns. Last year State Rep Bruce Morris received $7500 in public finance funds. In February of 2009 he returned $1,579.99 of it. Half of the original $7500 he apparently spent on GOTV (Get Out The Vote) wages. In an unopposed race. Now for the really really good question. Why was public tax payer money was used to pay for GOTV wages in an unopposed race? Isn’t it a fair question to ask if the work done by these GOTV workers was limited to exclusively work on Morris’ campaign? Who will answer this? Who will pose the question as this supposedly public meeting about campaign finance?

Yes there needs to be a good discussion of the campaign finance law, but it would help if the purpose of it, isn’t spun into this mythical tale of public money prevents corruption by lobbyists, when the Federal courts have actually said it is unfair to minority parties, and we have an example of wasteful spending on unopposed races. Call it concerned taxpayer in a bankrupt state with the facts.

The Connecticut NAACP must have been dredging the pool for this one:

State Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, was honored as one of Connecticut’s 100 influential blacks at the 44th annual state convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, held this month at the MGM Grand hotel at Foxwoods.

Serving his second term in the state’s General Assembly, Morris is co-chairman of the legislature’s Task Force on Fatherlessness, and was instrumental in presenting solutions to concerns regarding unfair treatment of defendants at Norwalk Superior Court.