UPDATED: Councilors push for openness on New London police chief's agreement

Editor’s note: This article has been edited to include the following information: an agreement between City Manager Denise Rose and Chief Margaret Ackley was made in April of this year. An earlier version included a typo with the incorrect year.

New London - After more than a week of insisting that an agreement between the city manager and the police chief is a private matter, some city councilors are now talking about making the document available to the public.

"I think it needs to be released,'' said Councilor Adam Sprecace, who called for a special City Council meeting next week.

"There's too much swirling around right now. It has an ability to do more harm than good (by not releasing the document),'' he said Friday. "The information contained within isn't nearly as bad as what people are thinking."

Mayor Martin Olsen scheduled a special meeting for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday to discuss whether to release the document to the public. The council will also discuss the implications of the agreement.

"I think transparency is what is needed,'' Olsen said Friday. "Transparency will help put this issue to bed. I'm hoping this will be the beginning of getting answers. The community deserves answers."

An agreement between City Manager Denise Rose and Chief Margaret Ackley was made in April, according to Olsen, and contains a confidentiality clause that precludes anyone from discussing its contents. Councilors learned of the agreement last week when Law Director Thomas Londregan requested a special closed-door meeting.

On Wednesday the city denied a Freedom of Information request to release a copy of a memo of understanding. Londregan characterized the memo as a preliminary draft because the City Council had not ratified it.

Sprecace and Councilor Rob Pero voted against discussing the document behind closed doors and maintained it should be made public. Sprecace added Friday that there should never be a confidentiality clause between public officials. The council should not be bound by a confidentiality clause in a document it did not sign, he said.

By Friday, Councilor Michael Passero also was calling for the document to become public. He said it was a "major agreement" that could have an impact on the city's budget.

"We all more or less feel like we've been broadsided,'' Passero said. "The story is going to be whether the administration acted improperly in negotiating an agreement with a major department head and deliberately, if that's the case, kept the council in the dark."

Councilor Michael Buscetto III, whom Ackley tried unsuccessfully to keep out of the Aug. 10 meeting, said he would defer to the law director's advice on releasing the document.

"The bottom line is the administration met secretly or privately for several months and the council is just finding out about it now. How is that right?'' Buscetto said. "The city manager has put us in a very, very bad situation. ... It's just a mess."

Buscetto, who is running for mayor, along with Pero and Olsen, added that the agreement may have something to do with the coming election. He said other department heads are also negotiating for better financial arrangements before the election.

When a new mayor is selected Nov. 8, the city will no longer be run by the city manager. The new mayor, with a four-year term, will be in charge.

"This isn't the first deal we didn't know about,'' Buscetto said.

Members of the administration are going to have to explain why they did not let the council in on any agreements, he said.

"Politics is not the cleanest business,'' he added.

k.edgecomb@theday.com