If poor attendance wasn’t enough Tim Stelloh’s Advocate story raises a new problem for Nick Kydes. Apparently, his brother owns the Globe theater on Wall street since last fall. The same property subject to redevelopment plans targeted with eminent domain. Kydes has been a vocal on the subject of property rights in this area as a member of the planning committee. The planning committee reviews redevelopment plans, and as we saw yesterday is the one committee where Kydes has actually made the meetings.
According to Stelloh’s article, Corporation Counsel Peter Nolin has advised Kydes to recuse himself.
When Kydes went to city attorney Peter Nolin last month for advice, Nolin said that if the councilman knew the property was included in the redevelopment plan, he should disqualify himself from the process.
If “all the facts were known” during those previous meetings, Nolin said he would have advised Kydes to have recused himself then as well.
This raises the issue that Kydes did not recuse himself during the previous meetings of the planning committee, nor did he disclose his relationship to the property.
Is Kydes being an honest broker to his constituents? Or has he, by ignoring many Land Use and Building Management committee meetings and skipping the last four Common Council meetings, reduced his service to that of his own interests instead of the interests of the people of Norwalk?
The sad part of all this is the unhealthy way Norwalk goes about economic development. Where other cities encourage property by property development, Norwalk seems to prefer a single developer to come along and redevelop a bunch of properties all at one time. This of course was the similar approach favored by New London which gave us the Kelo decision by the Supreme Court in favor of municipalities seizing property for the nebulous economic development holy grail.
While Kydes may have a basic goal of protecting his family’s interests of property rights, it doesn’t look good for a sitting council member to have his brother buy a property that is within the redevelopment plan that he is reviewing. It does not look right that a sitting council member to not disclose this new ownership. And it does not look right for a sitting council member to only attend the meetings concerning that property.
source: The Advocate, Council member to keep quiet on development plan, By Tim Stelloh, September 3 2007
