Norwich — The City Council and Board of Public Utilities Commissioners will hold a joint workshop/informational meeting to discuss the recent controversial separation agreement with former Norwich Public Utilities General Manager John Bilda. 

Proposed changes to the utility commission’s policies to strengthen its oversight of the city-owned utility also will be discussed.

Mayor Peter Nystrom said Tuesday that he will preside at the joint meeting, to be held at 6 p.m. Monday in Council Chambers at City Hall. The meeting is open to the public but there will be no public comment period.

Nystrom said utilities commission Chairwoman Grace Jones will address the council, presenting the board’s position on approving the separation agreement with Bilda and also to present proposed changes to the board’s bylaws and policies to ensure future contracts with a general manager comply with the city charter and are not as one-sided as Bilda’s was perceived to be.

Nystrom said aldermen will ask questions but he said he will try to ensure that no one monopolizes the dialogue.

“And then there’s a concern about if we only dwell on the issue of ending the employment of the former general manager, we won’t get to the changes. And there will be changes,” Nystrom said of the meeting.

Bilda had been placed on paid leave Nov. 15, a week after he and four other officials with the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative were indicted on four federal corruption charges each for their roles in CMEEC’s hosting of lavish trips to the Kentucky Derby for four years and to a West Virginia luxury golf resort in October 2015. The trips and expensive gifts cost well over $1.1 million, according to the indictment.

The Board of Public Utilities Commissioners approved a separation agreement with Bilda on Jan. 22 that calls for paying him a $35,000 severance, allows him to retire in good standing with a full pension and provides payment for 864 hours of accrued sick time, 296 hours of accrued vacation time and a $1,000 contribution to his pension. Bilda agreed to resign effective Dec. 31 and to put in for retirement no later than April 10.

The agreement, which was strongly criticized by Nystrom and other aldermen as too generous based on the federal indictment, also called for the utilities’ commission’s two representatives on the CMEEC board of directors — currently Jones and Stewart Peil — to vote in favor of paying for Bilda’s legal defense fees in the federal criminal case.

Nystrom, who had called the agreement “disgusting” at the time, said Tuesday that the utilities commission was handcuffed by wording in Bilda’s employment contract that stated he could not be terminated for cause without an arbitration hearing. Nystrom and others said the one-sided five-year contract — apparently renewed in 2016 without a vote by the utilities commission — violated the city charter and was illegal.

But he added that the city likely would have faced a prolonged court battle if the commission had fired Bilda without a separation agreement. Nystrom said by charter, the utility general manager serves at the will of the board, and a future contract needs to reflect that, and would have to be approved by the commission in a public vote.

Utilities commissioners said in December that they had learned that in 2014, the commission essentially authorized its chairman to negotiate raises and amendments to Bilda’s contract unilaterally without approval by the board. Nystrom said such an arrangement also would be illegal by charter.

Jones could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening. Commission member Robert Staley, who was appointed in 2017, submitted 11 proposed reforms to the board’s policies and bylaws to ensure improved and more independent oversight of NPU’s operations.

Staley said Tuesday the reforms he proposed are being reviewed and re-drafted by board attorney Anthony Palermino, and NPU administrators are reviewing the proposals and providing input. Staley said he expects the draft proposals to be reviewed and acted on by the commission at the Feb. 26 or March 26 commission meeting.

“The next step will be drafting a contract for the next general manager,” Staley said. “That’s going to be vastly different (from Bilda’s contract). We haven’t done it yet, but will comply with the charter, be shorter in term, avoid some conflicts. The current contract, for example, gives a lot of the union benefits to the former general manager. That’s something we’re going to have to think about.”

c.bessette@theday.com