Let’s be honest, Stonington’s recent attempt to regulate short-term rentals, ending with the overwhelming denial of a proposed ordinance in a town wide vote, was a disaster.

Very few people were happy with the outcome, which is the status quo, unacceptable to so many.

I put a lot of the blame on First Selectwoman Danielle Chesebrough, who took on the issue and eventually put before voters a toothless ordinance that would have done little to address the vexing problem of runaway development of short-term rental businesses in residential neighborhoods.

I also blame the town’s attorney, Jeffrey Londregan of Conway, Londregan, Sheehan & Monaco, who wrote the cumbersome, ineffective, ill-fated ordinance.

Londregan warned that an initial town proposal limiting the short-term rentals to properties occupied by the owner could have created legal challenges.

I recently learned that Londregan’s firm represents Dime Bank, which, it turns out, has a $1.96 million commercial loan on a controversial six-unit property in a residential neighborhood owned by Long Island investors. Police from surrounding towns had to respond recently to a sprawling party in one of the units.

The original ordinance proposal with a residency requirement would have pulled the plug on short-term rental businesses like the one on School Street financed by Dime Bank and probably made it much harder for the out-of-state investors there to make their monthly loan payments of $11,757.28.

No doubt the bank and investors were relieved that Londregan’s watered-down ordinance, not the town’s initial proposal to require residency at short-term rental properties, is the one that made it to a vote.

I asked Dime Bank whether they have other commercial loans on short-term rentals in town and if they lobbied anyone in regards to the development of an ordinance. I got a no comment.

I reached out to Chesebrough by email and voicemail this week, to ask whether she was concerned that the town’s law firm also represents a bank that has in interest in short-term rentals in town.

She didn’t respond.

Londregan responded to my questions about this issue with a long email in which he said there was no conflict in his firm’s representing the Dime Bank and his drafting of the ordinance.

He noted that his firm represents Dime and other banks throughout southeastern Connecticut and that it had no involvement with the specific $1.96 million commercial loan that I asked about.

“I am not aware of any conflict under the Rules of Professional Conduct whereby a lawyer with a firm that represents a lending institution in providing mortgages and funding to property owners throughout a Town would preclude that firm from reviewing and commenting on behalf of a municipal client on a proposed ordinance attempting to regulate short-term rentals,” he wrote.

I’m sure that’s true.

Still, I wonder what people in town think about a lawyer with so much business involvement and interest in property lending crafting a law about how that property can be used commercially in residential neighborhoods.

Londregan in his email said he could not comment in detail about legal advice he gave town officials about the short-term rental ordinance unless they waive lawyer-client privilege.

Town residents certainly deserve to hear more about that advice.

Maybe a residency requirement of some kind is a good idea and maybe not. Maybe longtime existing rentals, for summer houses, can be grandfathered. Maybe it should all be outlawed in residential neighborhoods.

Chesebrough has said the issue won’t be raised again until a new administration is in place after the fall elections.

Maybe that election will bring new faces, new thinking and new advice on the topic. I hope so.

Short-term rentals will be, in many indirect ways, on the ballot again.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com