Richetelli Denies Anger's Allegations

The following quote appeared on the Milford Musing Blog run by veteran reporter Frank Juliano regarding the recent federal lawsuit and allegations made against the city.

"Mayor James L. Richetelli Jr. denied allegations in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by veteran assistant city attorney Cynthia Anger that she was fired because of her union-organizing activities.

But Larry Dorman, spokesman for AFSCME Council 4, said the union has filed a prohibited labor practice complaint against the city on those very grounds, and is seeking Anger’s reinstatement.

An informal hearing will be held March 23 in City Hall. If it is not resolved there it could go to arbitration, officials said."

This Richetelli rebuttal leads us no better off than when this first began, and the question still beckons what was his reasoning if his response directly challenges the thoughts of the person he fired?

This sounds like pure politics on the surface. This is also the first "non round-about" direct firing of a city employee by the Richetelli administration. Usually when a person crosses the Richetelli gang they end up being let go like Bob Adams, or in a manner that is very sneaky, confusing and stealthy never so abruptly.

Perhaps Anger was too well prepared for that kind of a practice and the direct approach was the only way he could exact his authority. Many people in town are still perplexed by this firing, few people were even aware that problems existed in the towns Law Department.

While we know that no one was previously fired for the failures of the Building Department, and no one said a word about firing anyone in the Tax Collectors office when their failure to collect taxes was outsourced. It would now appear that the Milford town authorities are only interested punishing those who are disobedient and disloyal to the expectations of their people.

Should Richetelli have fired someone in the building department, I think the town would have cheered. Had he fired someone in the tax collectors office for failure to collect the taxes he outsourced... the people probably would have understood and If he called for Barbara Lambert's resignation for playing Solitaire on the job he would have earned much public respect... but Cynthia Anger? We are still as perplexed today by this action as we were the moment it happened.

In all our endeavors, news articles and comments from locals it would appear that even Cynthia Anger appears to be confused as to why she was Fired. Can anyone explain how this is a justifiable dismissal I do'nt get it?

Lawsuits Against City Mount

Many years ago when I used to meet with my life insurance broker, he and I discussed retirement options. During that time I was young and naive and I dared to ask the question "how does the average person find the millions required to retire?" Well ask a silly question and get a silly answer, he replied "Northwest Mutual did a survey on this very issue and one prominent and alarming response by many people was they expect to win a lawsuit."

As of today, the city of Milford certainly has its litigants lined up to collect from the "city till." This week the Board of Education reported they are "almost out of legal funds" having spent almost all their money combating Harvey Polanski, and other Special Education Lawsuits.

The Milford Police Department is expected to get hit with a "whopper" as a result of two wrongful death lawsuits on the part of fired officer Anderson. These suits are expected from the victims families whose children were killed. The city could expect to pay out Seven figures each to these litigants.

In the Milford law Department today, Cynthia Anger who was fired decided to sue the town in Federal Court over her alleged wrongful termination. She states that because she wanted to form a union the Mayor wrongfully fired her. Her former boss Winn Smith was also named in the lawsuit.

These are just some of the most mentionable lawsuits, but none-the-less they are aggregate to the several other legal nuances that normally occur as a result of the heavy hand of government taxes, home valuations, and environmental disasters.

The level of litigious discord in Milford is reaching a budget breaking climax. Sadly most of these cases are the result poor judgement on the part of someone with power who thought better.

Many are asking who is paying for all this? And this certainly remains a valid question. I believe the city has some insurance to cover losses but in the end taxpayers are picking up the tab for most of it.

The Lawyers who are currently "stirring the pot" could care less about you or I. They are self serving "spin doctors" who make money by perverting logic, and inflating the rewards and expectations of their clients. They love it when people cannot agree it means they get more fees and work. A rational individual could easily conclude that the longer a legal conflict goes on the more a law firm stands to benefit.

Personally, and having been a former Deputy Sheriff myself, I can honestly tell you from my countless hours working with lawyers that they have kids to put through college, mortgage payments, and bills to pay just like the rest of us. They are motivated to make money for themselves and their bosses.

While I agree attorneys have their place in city issues, I fear that this new and excessive use of them is a false sense of security. The end result is going to be higher taxes on the citizens of Milford, and endless ongoing and protracted litigation that every attorney is "salivating to get a piece of."

The surest way to guarantee that a simple problem is complicated beyond reason, is to combine the "pompous delusions of grandeur" of legal clients with as many "liberal self serving lawyers as possible." Only then can the town-wide legal "feeding frenzy" and taxpayer extortion begin.

The time is now for all Milford Bureaucrats to start obeying the law, or change it to avoid the egregious and continual waste of taxpayer dollars to a predatory group of Vulchers..