Westport’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM) tonight unanimously approved a sense-of-the-meeting resolution asking the school board to sever its 30-year ties with the Hartford law firm Shipman & Goodwin LLP.
The resolution also states that in doing so, an RFP, a request for proposals, should be issued for the school board to find other legal representation.
The vote shores up the Board of Selectmen’s unanimous vote on Sept. 16, when it asked the Board of Education to drop Shipman & Goodwin.
Mark Mathias, school board chairman, said the matter would be on addressed at a special Board of Education meeting on Monday, Oct. 14.
The reason town officials want Shipman & Goodwin dropped is a perception of a conflict of interest. Firm attorney Tim Hollister, in representing a developer, last spring in an interview publicly disparaged the town as racist regarding the state’s affordable housing law 8-30g.
Another grave concern, First Selectman Jim Marpe said was that on June 4 Hollister applied for a ruling to the state Department of Housing (DOH) claiming that Westport’s moratorium points were incorrect.
Moratorium points, which are good for four years, allow municipalities to work on establishing affordable housing, “so we could be in better control of affordable housing,” Marpe said at the selectmen’s meeting.
“That’s a conflict, and it’s really hard to swallow,” RTM member Lou Mall said at tonight’s meeting. “I’m all in favor of the resolution.”
Mall thanked RTM member Matthew Mandell for bringing the matter forward to the legislative body, adding that “the attorney for Shipman & Goodwin began stepping over the line.”
The entire legislative body agreed.
-– James Lomuscio
