What follows is the exclusive coverage of the continuing saga of internal Democratic party food fights. If only they could just get around to actually throwing food, instead of words around, this would be more exciting. But, I shouldn’t complain, I was graciously invited to attend the hearing and drove up with Mike Coffey and Dave Brown. So what follows is the hearing of Michael Coffey, Fred Bondi and David Brown versus the Norwalk Democratic Party

In a 6 page document, the outline of how Norwalk Democratic Town Chair Galen Wells systematically disregarded rules was presented to a panel of four people representing the state party. Tom McDonough DSCC member announces the rules and procedures of the hearing. Sharon Sherman, Lon Seidman, Kevin Reynolds are also on the panel.

Attending the hearing were Dave Brown, Kevin Poruban, Gwenn Briggs, Galen Wells, Stuart Wells, Ari Disraelly, Peter Thor, and Walter Briggs,

Representing the Norwalk Democratic party was Ed Schmidt, formerly assistant mayor to Alex Knopp.

The complaint details a defective legal notice, failure to notify Norwalk’s 14,000 Democrats of the caucus candidates, as well as violations that occurred during the caucuses. Affected districts were B, C, and E.

In addition Ken Slapin submitted a memorandum as State Central Committee member following the hearing held last week. Slapin’s memo details a lack of “good faith of the attempt to forge a resolution.”

Mike Coffey makes his presentation, introduces his complainants, Fred Bondi (not present) and Dave Brown. He outlines the complaint as being part of three prongs; notice violations, conducting of the caucus and the rules in Norwalk.

He opens with the party rules of the national Democratic party, and says that the rules in Norwalk are not open and transparent and similar to national party rules.

Coffey says that the notice violations were defective because did not state dates and times, or reach out to various populations groups like the latino population. He claims that they did not do a good job of reaching out to the 14,000 registered Democrats. He references the “strange rules” that Norwalk has, that the other towns do not, such as requiring that you have to go to 3 district committee meetings in order become a member but that the meetings are not noticed to the public.

Following the lack of notice, some people mentioned to Galen and Stuart Wells that the notice was defective, with time to remedy the situation, but that the notices were not corrected.

The rules were incorrectly stated at the last DTC meeting before the caucus was held, causing candidate letters to be filed who were not otherwise qualified to be eligible.

In addition, Coffey said that the notice that was filed in the newspaper was incorrect. The legal notice was filed after the letter required to file candidacy was due.

He goes on to describe the events that occurred in the noticing procedure, offering up an email that was sent 24 hours prior to the caucus that a caucus was being held. He also detailed that no one knew who the candidates were.

He says also that a district committee, C, violated the Norwalk rules by not holding 6 meetings as required.

Coffey claims that the notice violations were done intentionally to remove certain people from the DTC. He describes how all of the procedures used by previous chairs were not followed.

“Rules were more about preserving the status quo than opening the doors of government”, said Coffey.

He describes “the ward B ballot bag.” [WTF is that all about?]

He describes the rule and the effect of the rule on close races that requires that 7 people, the number of candidates to be elected, have to be voted on. Any ballot that does not contain 7 votes would be tossed out.

Coffey claims that there’s no rational basis of the rules, since they deprive the 14,000 registered Democrats of participating in the party.

McDonough interrupts to question why the notice filing harmed people since anyone at that point would not be eligible to run.

Ed Schmidt is up next. He also distributes a memorandum with exhibits. He starts with a bit on his background, former Democratic house counsel. He claims that the there is friction within the party but that the party is on the rebound. He describes the people attending and their roles in the party. He says the goal is to resolve this. He says the dispute is not about what was talked about today, its about other issues. Schmidt says that nothing that was said or alleged suggests that all 35 elected members be tossed for a new election. The positive of that, he concedes that the rules date back to the 80’s, and that the party chair would establish a rules committee to in order to look at the rules, but the new rules would only be applied going forward. He does not believe that the election should be disallowed.

Schmidt refers to exhibits, including a letter sent out to district members, says it’s a form letter from the state party, then the legal notice published on January 3rd, and a post card was sent out in District E only. He says 53 people showed up District E, and that is evidence that the Democratic process was robust since the average turnout is half a dozen. He submits the vote tally in District E, and says that the vote totals show that the Democratic process was followed. He keeps repearting that Mike Coffey only got 8 votes.

Schmidt then speaks about District B, and that Carvin Hilliard did not withdraw his name till 5pm the night of the caucus. It turned out that 9 names on the ballot and that the election was actually uncontested. They [District B] didn’t discover this till the next day. He hands out an exhibit showing a progressive slate, that had members that did not give permission that their names were on it. He also submitted a letter by Karen Spencer who says that the procedure in District E was followed properly. He concludes that there be a standing committee of rules because rules “keep evolving.” Says that all chairman are committed to enhancing changes to the rules, from Peter Thor to current chair Galen Wells.

Schmidt says that people do care who gets elected to the town committee, and that it would be physically impossible to rerun the election because petitions would have to be obtained in 7 days. And that the schedule is driven by the right to primary and that this is an important right. The request to set aside the results in 5 districts would result in a total meltdown in Norwalk. Schmidt tries to make this about Mike Coffey losing. He also says that he hasn’t heard any allegation that would meet the request to have the elections over turned.

Schmidt concedes that all of the errors made were minor and technicalities and that these are technical issues, but that it wasn’t substantial since it really had no impact on the election. He cites that its only about a runoff election, and again says that its all about Coffey.

Schmidt details that it is ok for the district chair to be the caucus chair.

Schmidt didn’t know that Dave brown and Fred Bondi were complainants. But that in ward B, he simply forgot the box and this was no big deal. Ward C “is the same story” and that Fred Bondi was sitting at the table observing the ballots being counted. It wasn’t a violation. [Strange since this wasn’t the problem in C]

Schmidt says there was a laundry list of shuoulda coulda wouldas, and that they are mostly irrelevant to the proceedings tonight. Schmidt suggests that even if you put them all together in a big box, that they still wouldn’t warrant overturning an election. “It doesn’t mean that anybody did anything wrong” He says the resolution should be that a rules committee be set up.

Coffey rebuts. There’s not a happy harmony in Norwalk, Schmidt is being paid $200/hr. Mentions Bondi sent $1k back to the party and in unhappy if turns out that this money is being used to defend the party here tonight.

Dounough interjects that that is not why they are here.

Coffey continues that there is no resolution offered prior to tonight. He says that Ken Slapin believed that the rules should be thrown out. He reminds the panel that nothing has been done about changing the rules after a notice violation was found to be a problem in 2006. He declares that the district C violations are egregious and thus carrying petitions is not an injurious process. Coffey says that he believes that the changes to the rules will not be made, make them adopt the rules that state central has for places that do not have local rules, until they come up new rules.

“On the notice violation you can’t have it both way, you can’t choose to follow state rules one time, and the local rules another just when it suits you,” he concludes.

Reynolds questions Coffey about the notice violation.

Coffey suggests that the notice date, the location and time was not on the notice so the rule was not followed.

[They keep defending the actions by citing district E, not C]

Schmidt says that Ken Slapin didn’t say that the rules are invalid.

Dave Brown got an opportunity to speak. “You heard about letters going on, postcards going out, in my district that didn’t happen,” Brown said. Had he known that it would be a disputed caucus, he didn’t get a chance to call his friends to have them come out and vote for him. Without proper notice he didn’t get a chance to get his vote out.

Kevin Poruban gets a chance to claim that there has been more than 3 meetings held and also claim that the post cards have been sent out in his district. Brown mutters that that’s not true. Brown adds that there were only minutes for three meetings.

Coffey follows up that Dave Brown became the secretary of district C. sometime in the summer. There’s some discussion about the relevance, with Schmidt sort of objecting, but that Coffey says, “There is dichotomous testimony here, Poruban believes that there were 3 meetings Dave Brown does not. That is relevant.”

With no other comments, the hearing concludes. It’s likely that a ruling will be pretty quick in coming, but no one was ready to chat about what they think happened on the record. While there was a certain civility about the room, and people were trying to say the right things, it was clear that the undercurrent of tension was palpable. Schmidt basically missed defending the case that was presented, and Coffey basically stuck it to Wells that she failed to follow the rules, that have apparently been followed for 30 years. Despite the tiffs that also happen in the Norwalk Republican party, it seems that they are much more open about keeping peace in the party by including larger numbers of members and actively inviting new people into the party. It’s funny how much the local parties are just bizzaro versions of their national counterparts.