STAMFORD — The Board of Representatives’ ongoing legal battles in the name of vindicating two resident petitions cost the city about $230,000 in just under three years — and that sum is still going up.
Invoices obtained by The Stamford Advocate lay out $228,849.77 in litigation expenses incurred by the city legislature between December 2018 and November 2021, detailing the mounting costs associated with fighting two lawsuits currently before the state Supreme Court.
The total has only grown since November, as the Board of Representatives continues to meet with the attorney from Bridgeport-based firm Cohen and Wolf to discuss the battles over the High Ridge Office Park and former B&S Carting site.
The board’s first legal spat started in mid-2018 when developer George Comfort & Sons, who owns the aforementioned office park, appealed its decision to block a Life Time Fitness center from converting office space in High Ridge Park after a groundswell of public opposition from neighbors in the surrounding single-family homes and condominiums.
Stamford’s list of expenses doubled a handful of months later when developer Building and Land Technology sued city representatives for accepting and approving a resident petition it claims “the Board otherwise did not have jurisdiction to consider.” As in the High Ridge Office Park case, city representatives blocked changes to Stamford’s zoning rules after public outcry over how development, this time on a former industrial site in the South End, would shape the neighborhood.
But those decisions came at a cost, according to former Rep. Ben Lee, who represented District 15 from 2017 until 2021 and now serves on Stamford’s Board of Education.
“If you had asked anyone back then, ‘This is going to take two-and-a-half years, and it’s going to cost over $100,000 a piece’ — I don’t know if many board members had a full conception of what that was going to be,” he said.
For both the office park and carting site cases, the Board of Representatives challenged provisions that govern how the city must evaluate planning- and zoning-related protest petitions from residents, bucking advice from the city’s Law Department in the process. State Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger ruled in March 2020 that the Board of Representatives does not have the jurisdiction to decide whether petitions or valid or not, a point that the board still contests.
On top of that, Berger ruled in the High Ridge case that condominium owners aren’t considered full landowners under the city Charter and only have a fractional right to protest zoning decisions. That decision only bolstered representatives’ convictions in pursuing subsequent appeals.
In recent weeks, the running total spent between the two cases has proven a recurring point of contention among board members as they weigh whether to take on another petition from residents against the advice of the city’s top lawyer. While a panel of board members in January voted in favor of taking on the new petition, other representatives have raised alarms over racking up even more court costs.
“I’m perfectly happy to have our committee consider and indeed challenge (the decision) if they wish, but it’s a bridge too far for me to suggest in any way, shape or form that we intend or are considering going against the advice of corporation counsel, because that’s already cost us a quarter of a million dollars,” Rep. David Watkins, R-1, said during a Land Use Committee meeting in January. The full board will further consider taking on the petition at its Feb. 7 meeting.
The ongoing legal fees will likely end within the coming months, depending on when the state’s highest court weighs in on the two long-running legal battles. The Board of Representatives’ lawyers appeared before the court’s seven justices in September.
The city charter allows the Board of Representatives to retain independent counsel without explicit approval from the mayor as long as there is overwhelming support from its members. With affirmative votes from at least 31 members, the board can retain new lawyers and pay them with Stamford’s litigation contingency funds. For both High Ridge and B&S Carting, representatives overwhelmingly voted to hire outside lawyers.
The Board of Representatives spends an average of more than $7,000 per month on legal fees from Cohen and Wolf for both cases. That covers expenses ranging from preparing legal arguments for court appearances to attending meetings with board members. On average, the board has spent $4,130 monthly on costs for the High Ridge Office Park case and $3,719 a month on the B&S Carting case.
City Director of Operations Matthew Quinones declined to comment on the board’s ongoing legal expenses because of his position in the mayoral administration. Quinones previously served as board president from 2017 until late 2021 when he joined Mayor Caroline Simmons’s cabinet in January 2022.
Current Board President Jeff Curtis, D-14, also declined to comment given the debates about a new potential petition currently before the board.
But according to Lee, there was a clear sense among representatives that the battles would take time and effort.
“The board wanted to get into this to go all the way,” he said. “They wanted to … vindicate the public’s right for expressing concern over potential zoning and planning changes.”
Prior to every new step in the process, the Board of Representatives was appraised on how much any appeals related to the two cases would cost, according to former District 18 Rep. J.R. McMullen, a Republican who is now a member of the city’s Board of Finance.
“There weren’t surprises when we approved continuing with it,” McMullen said. Generally speaking, Cohen and Wolf provided board members with an estimate before every action, and McMullen claimed those estimates were roughly accurate.
Still, the appropriations approved by the board “came in waves,” Lee said. He estimated that board members approved no more “than five figures at a time” and “generally it was … mid-five figures.”
Though the estimates were consistent, Lee thinks the incremental approach at times obscured how much was being spent.
While Lee looks back on his and the board’s decision-making with a measure of skepticism, McMullen aligns more with a sentiment still popular among current city representatives. McMullen said he views continuing with the two cases as the legislature’s duty in the face of nebulous instructions from the city charter.
Rep. Virgil de la Cruz, D-2, echoed a similar opinion before the Land Use Committee in January when discussing the latest zoning petition before the board.
“In order to preserve the prerogatives to the Board of Reps in the charter, I think it is to our best advantage to ensure that this petition is referred to the Board of Reps,” he said.
