Wallingford — All five members of the town's Parks and Recreation Commission have resigned after feeling they have been bypassed, ignored and hamstrung by town officials, some said.

Last week, the final two members of the commission — Chairman Jason Michael and Vice Chairman Michael Savenelli — submitted a resignation letter to the town. All five of the commission's members resigned in this calendar year, Savenelli said Monday. Commission members Dave Gelo, Steve Rossacci and Don Crouch previously had resigned.

"We feel we are a commission in name only lately," Savenelli said.

In the Michael and Savenelli resignation letter, the pair said the decision to resign came about through "(f)rustration and a complete and thorough neutering of this commission over the past few years." The letter said the "past few years represent the antithesis of the work and production we had all been so happy to do."

"(W)e have been ignored, uninformed and categorically neutered as a functional commission," the letter said.

The letter said the commission has had concerns from signage to safety around town ignored.

"This has been a systemic failure that's been building for years," the letter said.

Savenelli said Monday that commissioners have felt ignored. Although the commission has no regulatory authority, Savenelli said commissioners historically have been consulted before town departments begin work on projects on public land.

"We just felt like lately we've been falling on deaf ears," he said. "We're more of an oversight and guidance type of group, but we were always looked at as more than that. There was a time when, before stuff was done it was brought to us by the director. Now we don't even get asked to give an opinion. Things happen we don't even know about."

Michael said members felt their commission had grown to become "useless" as they were not being consulted on the issues they were intended to review.

"We had a pretty good symbiotic relationship with the department. We were initiators of projects to steer and mold and watch come to fruition," he said. "How can we advise if we don't know the subject matter?"

Savenelli said he recently drove past the downtown gazebo and saw the town was doing work on it, although commissioners had not been made aware that would happen.

"As a commissioner, I should know about this. Being a commissioner for over 10 years, people ask me what's going on with this and that. You're in a position where you look like a lame duck," he said.

In 2019, Wallingford's parks director of 16 years, John Gawlak, was hired to a similar role in Cheshire. Parks employee Kenny Michaels was promoted to the role of director. Michaels did not respond to multiple requests for comment Monday.

Savenelli said one of the biggest disappointments had been the commission's work on a newly-rebuilt community pool, a pool dating back to the 1950s. In 2019, the Town Council approved more than $600,000 for design work on a new community pool. Savenelli, who had been chairman of the commission's pool subcommittee, said that "five years worth of work and $500,000 work of taxpayer money" has gone toward the project, but it has gone nowhere after Mayor William Dickinson vetoed the council's vote to appropriate $7.4 million toward the renovation project.

"It was a very hard pill for me to swallow, my probably two-foot-tall pile of papers, and to give it back to our director and say, 'I'm done and I have no fight left in me,'" he said. "We have a beautiful design for this pool. I couldn't try to add up the hours I put into that pool committee, traveling the state and meeting with contractors, spending half a million dollars on a design with nothing to show for it."

Dickinson said Monday that he regrets that commissioners felt shut out of the process, but, "I'm not aware of any real substantive issues affecting our programming and our ability to provide an opportunity to recreation."

Although public meeting minutes posted on the town's website reflect that Gelo, Michael and Savenelli were the final three commissioners, Dickinson said he has made one appointment to the commission that remains on the commission and he intends on making more.

"I'm aware of several people who are interested in being appointed," he said. "I will be reviewing that and hopefully making some decisions soon."

Dickinson said the commission is an advisory commission, which "is very helpful in advising the director and in encouraging different things to happen, but the recreation department functions with or without the commission, because the director has the necessary authority to make ultimate decisions."

Dickinson said his opposition to bonding for the pool project was one of safety and fiscal responsibility.

"The pool was originally slated for around $5 million, but the price came in at $7 million and then COVID presented itself to us and given its nature and not being able to provide programs, I really didn't feel it was appropriate to be borrowing $7 million to put into a pool," he said.

He also said he did not believe safety issues have been neglected in the town's parks because the town employs a risk manager.

"I know there's a regular process of review with the risk manager," he said.

Savenelli said he hopes that before Dickinson appoints replacement commissioners that the Town Council could revise the town charter to give the Parks and Recreation Commission more authority than an advisory commission.

Michael said that if any changes were to come of the commissioners' decision to resign then he would consider it to have been worth it.