Link to Briefs Filed: Reply Brief, dated September 21, 2009

Facts:
The plaintiffs, nine (9) abutters and two (2) intervenors, are appealing the decision of the Zoning Board of the City of Stamford which approved a coastal site plan to construct two tire crumb artificial soccer fields on shorelands at a municipality-owned park known as West Beach Park (“Capital Project”).

Issues:
Zoning Board never met to discuss if CAM Application, CSPR-838, meets the goals and policies of the Coastal Management Act, thus the plaintiff’s claim that the approval of the costal site plan review was unlawful and invalid.

POLOYATE, ET AL vs. ZONING BOARD of APPEALS & CITY OF STAMFORD

Link to Briefs Filed: City Brief Zoning Cases

These briefs are consolidated with the briefs filed in Poloyate, et al vs. Zoning Board and City Of Stamford, discussed above.

Facts:
Zoning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals plainly, though erroneously, believed that they lacked jurisdiction to consider the Charter and governing law issues raised by the plaintiffs. Neither Board acknowledged its duty to be familiar with and comply fully with the governing laws, to include the City’s Charter and the Connecticut General Statutes.

It has been well established that a city's charter is the fountainhead of municipal powers, and agents of a city, including its boards, have no source of authority beyond the charter. The charter serves as an enabling act, both creating power and prescribing the form in which it must be exercised.

Issues:
The common threshold issue in this case and the previous case, is whether the Defendant Boards may, in any manner, lawfully approve the Capital Project when the municipal applicant – the City of Stamford – and other City boards have not complied with the City Charter and the Connecticut General Statutes.

MURPHY VS. CITY OF STAMFORD & DEROSA TENNIS CONTRACTORS, INC.

Link to Briefs Filed: Supreme Court Petition for Certification

Facts:
The plaintiff filed a four-count complaint challenging the legality of incurring obligations under the contested $5.7 million contract the City of Stamford entered into with DeRosa Tennis Contractors Inc. (“DeRosa Contract”) for the construction of four soccer fields, illegally shifting incurred operating expenses to the capitalized cost of the unauthorized projects; and then unlawfully using proceeds, $6+ million, from general obligation bonds of the City to finance the unauthorized soccer projects and operating expenses.

The unauthorized projects are to be paid solely from funds derived from taxes. The defendants did not dispute any of plaintiff’s misappropriation of public funds allegations. Plaintiff’s asked the court for, among other things, a declaration that the DeRosa Contract is illegal and void as a violation of the City’s Charter.

Issue:
Unlike the vast majority of the states, the trial court ruled, among other things, that residents of Connecticut are not entitled to use the courts to sue local officials for misappropriation of municipal funds. This case in on appeal to the Supreme Court.