Special Bulletin
Majority Dems graciously agreed to delay a vote appointing a new Republican member. Then Fred Camillo staged a coup.
The verbal vitriol flying around Town Hall and across Havemeyer Fields to the school board building has drowned out the facts, in the latest battle over the heart and soul of our Board of Education.
“Illegal!” “Invalid!” cried First Selectman Fred Camillo, when the board’s majority Democratic membership voted earlier this week to install Jennifer Behette, a former educator, Central Middle School PTA co-chair, and Republican, as the newest member of the eight-member board. The vacancy occurred when the board’s chair, Karen Kowalski, acknowledged earlier this year that she’d moved out of the district (it had been whispered so, for months) and stepped down.
That set up a period in which, by state statute, the Board of Education could interview and select a new member to fill out the term. The one legal requirement was that the new appointee be a member of the same party as the previous office holder, in this case a Republican.
Democrats sought to fill that vacancy
So the school board, now tipped temporarily to a 4-3 Democratic majority, set about its work. Fortunately for the town and our students, members have made an effort to lead in a bipartisan manner. But last January, positions hardened when Republican members insisted on nominating Kowalski, a culture war firebrand, as chair. Camillo is authorized to break such an impasse (with the guarantee that his fellow Selectman, Lauren Rabin, would vote the same way) and anointed Kowalski despite Democratic concerns.
Dems delay vote to accommodate Republicans
This time, seeking to turn the page, our Democratic school board members centered on Republican Behette as a bipartisan alternative—someone who would bring deliberations back to the center. Last week at a regularly scheduled meeting, they prepared to vote her in. But that’s when one Republican member disappeared and Democratic members were asked to postpone it. Out of courtesy they did.
What Dems didn’t know is that a plot was afoot in the First Selectman’s office to seize the seat. Camillo called a snap meeting before the BOE vote was to occur, and planned to invoke a questionable tactic that even his own town attorney would not publicly agree is legal. So our school board Democrats called an emergency meeting of their own, and followed through on their previous plan, electing Republican Behette to the board.
Despite the vote, Camillo pulls a fast one, inserting a crony in the already occupied seat
This brings us to Tuesday, when Camillo committed partisan, and potentially illegal, overreach, claiming Behette isn’t Republican enough. So who did he choose? Someone with zero educational experience, a political pal, and current Republican candidate for state representative, Paul Cappiali. He is also the guy who was working on the Camillo campaign in 2019 when fake Trump-Camillo signs appeared on our streets. He helped unmask the funder in a case that eventually cost our town $650,000 after the sign’s creator sued.
The First Selectman did our children no favors
It’s clear that we’re all still unclear on how this will play out from a process or legal perspective. But make no mistake, Democrats on our school board were and are acting in the bipartisan interest of our town, and more importantly of our school children. We have one of the most high-performing public school districts in the country, and we shouldn’t put it in the hands of inexperienced, partisan cronies. The First Selectman is wrong to insert himself in a process that was seeking to avoid that.
| Bulletin • October 23, 2024 |
| Paid for by the Greenwich Democratic Town Committee. |
| Greenwich Democratic Town Committee P.O. Box 126 Greenwich, CT 06836 |