To the editor:

The many failures of the current leadership of the Westport Board of Health to properly manage the board’s finances got a public airing at the Finance Committee meeting of March 26 (see the Vimeo of that meeting from 56 to 1:29 minutes).

The new BOH director, without any support from either his chair or vice-chair, was alone in the “hot seat” explaining why the BOH was running out of cash after only three-fourths of the fiscal year, and why they would not have enough funds left to pay staff salaries for the last week of the fiscal year.

He explained that he had recently come on board and had no role in formulating the budget. The vice-chair of the Finance Committee suggested that this seemed to reflect financial mismanagement by the board officers.

This runs counter to recent letters in the local newspaper by both the chair and vice-chair extolling the managerial skills of the chair who is running for re-election and being endorsed by members of the Westport Taxpayers Association.

Why weren’t the BOH officers at this important meeting where the BOH was requesting additional funds to keep the Board operating through the end of the fiscal year? Why did they put this responsibility on the new director? And why did they wait until the eleventh hour to apprise the Finance Committee of this dilemma?

Perhaps the answer to all these questions is directly related to the upcoming election. This glaring example of poor budgetary management is not something any incumbent would want to have surface during a reelection bid. Crisis “management” is not what we need at the BOH.

Vote Tanja Ryden for BOH.

Jenn and Bruce Mello

Kathy and Conrad Feininger

Constance Gee

Westport