FOI Hearing Tapes Released - Grab A Blanket And Pillow And Get Comfy!

“Ahhhh, now, remember on the last clip we heard,  the Atty. for Mr. 

Perrotti is "questioning" whether or not Mr. Perrotti received the FOI 

request that Mr. St. John said "followed standard procedures" back in 

2007,  i.e., it was put in inter office mail.

  Hmmm. Now listen to Atty. Buckley question Mr. Perrotti. The tape is a 

bit "noisy" in parts but certain things are very clear"

a. Mr. Perrotti states twice that he received  DeAngelis' request in 

"inter-office mail". We guess his attorney forgot about that.

b .He also states that immediately upon

receiving the request he called his attorney. We guess she forgot about 

that , also.

Lot of forgetting going around

Little by little we will release the whole tape as well as peripheral 

conversations.”

Mr. DeAngelis somehow equates his FOI HEARING as if it was the OJ Simpson Trial.  Anyone who attended would certainly agree that sitting through this hearing was definitely a cure for insomnia. Even the State’s FOI Hearing Officer looked at the clock on the wall no less than 200 times during the course of the morning. 

Why in the world would he want to tape it and share it with the world, when most people in the room had a difficult time sitting through it the first time?  These are not the Watergate tapes, but a painful rehashing of what seemed pretty obvious.

Over the course of over three excruciating hours, this is what was accomplished.

1) Mr. St. John testified that he was indeed the First Selectman in Middlebury at the time Mr. DeAngelis sent his FOI requests to the Town.  Mr. St. John testified that he forwarded the FOIs to the various Town Departments via e-mail.  When asked by the MVFD lawyer whether or not he had any proof they were actually delivered, Mr. St. John responded that he did not.  (By the way Mary Alice is the MVFD lawyer not Paul Perrotti’s lawyer.)

2) The purpose of Mr. Heidkamp’s testimony remains a mystery.  It seemed irrelevant to anything else that was being discussed.  He testified that he was once the chairman of the fire commission, yet when asked, had difficulty explaining what he actually did.  He also testified that he once was given a copy of the MVFD Bylaws, but could not say whether or not it was an up-to-date copy.  Thats it!  Was that worth taking a day off from work Ken?

3) Mike Belden was tortured on the “stand” with question after question after question after question about the MVFD budget, that could have been easily answered by Chief Perrotti who was sitting 15 feet away.

4) Paul Perrotti then took the stand and was questioned whether or not he received the FOI request from Mr. St. John.  He said he did.  Receiving the FOI requests was never the question, so it is curious why Mr. DeAngelis’s lawyer spent so much time on this.

Chief Perrotti also testified that since the FOI requests were pertaining to Town funds, he forwarded the FOI requests back to the Town.  Since the Town pays MVFD bills for line items from the MVFD budget, it would be the Town not the MVFD who would handle the FOI requests.   All those records are stored at Town Hall, not at the Firehouse. Makes sense?

Other FOI requests regarding the funds of the MVFD INC. were not honored, since these funds are not derived from Taxpayer dollars.  

That was the hearing in a nutshell. No surprise testimony, no smoking gun, no earth-shaking outcome.  Just three hours gone - that no one in the room will ever get back.