A missing person case in Old Lyme

OLD LYME — Behind closed doors, during email exchanges and phone calls, town hall was shaken in mid-May by the unexplained disappearance of Eric Knapp.

A former lawyer, who has worked as the city's land use coordinator since 2022, Knapp has participated in public meetings – zoning, inland wetlands and others – and has regularly enforced and arbitrated the city's sometimes tricky rules on land use. land use.

You could say he's the public face of the city's regulations on signs, roof lines and setbacks – a pretty thankless job.

And it was in this role, in 2022, that Knapp appears to have found himself embroiled in a particularly bitter conflict between Neck Road neighbors — one trying to run a retail daycare and the other trying to sell his house.

Being in the press sector, my colleagues regularly spoke with Knapp. He returns calls and picks up the phone. Right off the bat, I would say he is exceptionally competent, impartial, sometimes authoritarian. He doesn't have the heavy hand of local zoning.

But it is fair to say that in Old Lyme it has always been easier to have money than to make it, and to that extent the nurseryman, Mark Comstock, has found himself at the center of various surveys, questions about his hoops and a request from the Zoning Commission for an on-site visit — all billable hours for someone, I'm sure.

Comstock, perhaps the first person to attempt to start a business on Neck Road since the mid-1980s, was “put to the test,” in the opinion of one well-placed City Hall employee.

To further complicate matters, the real estate agent who was handling the neighboring sale at the time, Tammy Tinnerello, was sitting on Zoning. We are told that she also made efforts at town hall to help her client and this sale.

Knapp, as planning coordinator, was inevitably at the heart of the problem.

By all accounts, it appears that Comstock was operating legally and that its ability to grow and sell plants – with certain limitations – was never in doubt. And in May 2023, Knapp drafted an agreement that settled the problem, which satisfied no one, but which was not appealed. Comstock's business, at least on the surface, is booming.

Now fast forward a year.

Tinnerello, a Republican, lost the election. Comstock gave away many plants in an attempt to gain friends and favor – with some success, I might add.

And on May 14, Knapp was placed on paid leave by Martha Shoemaker, the first woman selected, pending what she called an investigation into a “private personnel matter” — an absurd phrase, if you know anything about the Connecticut Freedom of Information Law.

The nature of that investigation would not become apparent until weeks later, in a June 3 letter to Knapp outlining a 12-point complaint — although Katie Balocca, Shoemaker's executive assistant, denied the existence of a written complaint in response to a freedom of information request on June 17.

June 3-Complaint-Shoemaker

For what it's worth, a previous freedom of information request on the issue has been dragging on since mid-May, as well as another freedom of information request made in March for records in a separate case from alleged physical and verbal sexual harassment by an Old Lyme employee. – we heard that one of them was caught on camera.

Fortunately, the 12-point written complaint, described as “personal and confidential,” was disclosed to us, along with other public documents – and not by Knapp, I might add, since Shoemaker allegedly ordered him to refrain from speaking about the affair.

You can read the complaint for yourself – and Knapp's response – but I think it's fair to say that it focused on a series of sometimes derogatory asides that Knapp made to his colleagues in 2023 and 2024, expressing frustrations with a handful of local residents, including Comstock. and her neighbor Susan Zilke.

June 5-Reply-Knapp

Meanwhile, with Knapp still on leave — and his workload piling up for the busy season — the heads of the city's land planning commissions who work with Knapp — Inland Wetlands Chair Rachael Gaudio, and Zoning Board of Appeals Chairwoman Nancy Hutchinson (both elected without party affiliation). ) — forcefully opposed launching an investigation without consulting city staff and planning officials with knowledge of the subject.

In a subsequent follow-up on June 12, Shoemaker reduced his complaint to five counts, reduced Knapp one day's pay and ordered him to provide him with biweekly summaries of all issues and communications arriving on his office – you can be sure we will. filing freedom of information requests for each of them – as well as meetings and summaries with Paul Orzel, who chairs Zoning. Knapp was further ordered to complete sensitivity training. Here is his response.

Knapp has since returned to work.

It seems pretty clear that Shoemaker's intention is to force Knapp out – and I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's justified – but who else competent would take the job given that the above is anyone's guess. Maybe Shoemaker has someone else in mind.

Frankly, if we're cleaning up, launching investigations and requiring training, we might as well add gifts to City Hall, which has led Mark Wayland, the local building official, to distance himself from City Hall's current behavior and file a complaint. ethics complaint in January. There is currently no indication that the Ethics Commission has taken up the matter.

I didn't suggest in September that “the core of the election is still being developed” for no reason.

Letter from Wayland