I attended the hearing held by the Freedom of Information Commission (on Trinity Street in Hartford) to listen to Preston Shultz and CPS’s complaints related to two FOI demands they made against the Board of Education. The two lawsuits were combined into one hearing since they dealt with the same issue. His (and CPS) complaint was that the BOE did not turn over ALL of the documents that Shultz believed existed.

The hearing was held in front of Commissioner Vincent Russo and Commission Council, Valicia Harmon. Lindsay Paul, Chairman of the BOE, and Frank Baran, Superintendent of Schools, were present to represent the Woodstock School System along with the BOE lawyer Attorney Paul Shapiro from Shipman & Goodwin. Preston Shultz was present and represented by Attorney Robert Skelley who apparently makes a living out of representing incompetent clients living in Woodstock. You may recall that it was Robert Skelley who represented the Powers in their failed lawsuit against the school system. The Powers sued the school system to pay for their son’s education at the Rectory. Craig Powers crashed and burned under cross-examination by Attorney Ann Littlefield (also from Shipman & Goodwin).

Littlefield: “And isn’t it true that this July 12, 2005 letter from Ms. Lustila to you addresses the very same concerns that you raised in the December 27, 2005 letter from your attorney?” Powers: “I don’t believe it does, no.” Littlefield “Is it a substantive response to your claims of procedural violations or failure to identify the student?” Powers: “Not in my opinion.” Littlefield: “Does it specifically address (your son’s) prior history in Special Education and the comments made by Ms. Foco and Ms. Foisy?”… Littlefield: “Does it contain substantive information about (your son’s) prior history?” Powers: “Not in my opinion.” Littlefield: “It’s not substantive in your opinion?” Powers: “That’s correct.” Littlefield: “Okay. Does it address the concerns about statements made by Mrs. Foco and Ms. Foisy? I’m referring you to paragraph two on B-24, page one of two …. Does it address your concerns that you had raised concerning statements made by Mrs. Foco and Ms. Foisy? Does Ms. Lustila address those concerns in this letter?” Powers: “Not in a substantive fashion in my opinion.”…Littlefield: “Isn’t it true you just didn’t like Ms. Lustila’s answers to the questions you posed?” …

Shultz’ performance in the hearing today was equally poor.

The first thing I noticed is that BOE team showed respect for the court in their dress: Shapiro was wearing a black three-piece suit, Frank Baran was respectfully wearing a blue business suit, and Lindsay wore a tasteful yellow blazer and dark blue skirt. Robert Skelley was wearing a causal suit and Preston Shultz was nattily attired in a frumpy hot pink golf shirt. I didn’t bother to check out his bottom half.

There was one surprising nugget of information that escaped from Shultz’s mouth. Shultz volunteered in his testimony that Ms. Wholean gave him the evidence that he was now using as a ‘smoking gun’ in this hearing.

You may recall that Wholean filed an FOI complaint against the BOE while she was First Selectman. She then turned over the documents she received from that FOI request to Preston Shultz with a WINK, WINK… So, our First Selectman was using her position to feed documents to Shultz as ‘evidence‘ for CPS litigations out of her office in the Town Hall.

What was the ‘smoking gun’? The ‘smoking gun’ was two pages of hand-written notes taken by Lindsay Paul while attending a meeting at the State Board of Education (a well-known subversive organization) in Hartford several years ago. Lindsay is known by her colleagues on the BOE for her copius note-taking (a sign of competency and professionalism). On the second page about 2/3′s down it was clear that a section of the notes was redacted because the lines on the paper were not there. This is what Wholean was excited about WINK, WINK when she turned over this document to Shultz WINK, WINK. What subversive activity was Lindsay trying to cover up?

To get back to the other missing evidence for a moment, Shultz’s demands for documents included all bills from Shipman & Goodman. The bills contained references to drafts of memos and opinions provided by the lawfirm to the BOE. But none of those documents were handed over to Shultz. This was Shultz’s evidence that documents were withheld. The Commissioner quickly grasped that the ‘evidence‘ that was missing was protected by client-attorney privilege and his body language started to change in the direction of Skelley and his client.

Then both Baran and Paul testified that the smoking gun was two sets of notes, the first part taken during attendance at the subversive State BOE meeting and the second part taken from a meeting at Shipman and Goodwin right after the State BOE meeting (this is on the record). The purpose of the second meeting to meet with Ann Littlefield was stated during the course of the testimony. 

Ann Littlefield was the attorney that represented the BOE against Powers who had sued the school system to git money to educate their son at taxpayer expense at the Rectory though I have no knowledge of the purpose of the second meeting that day at Shipman & Goodwin.

It seems obvious, however, from the testimony that memos from attorneys and notes taken in meetings with attorneys are subject to attorney-client privilege and that the BOE had blocked out the notes taken at Shipman & Goodman which dealt with their effort to protect the town against the frivolous lawsuits by this well contected group which clearly includes Ms. Wholean.

We’ll just have to wait until July to hear the decision of the Commission though.

The hearing came to an abrupt end after Attorney Shapiro cross-examined Preston Shultz, and I paraphrase from memory: ‘Do you know what attorney-client privilege is?’ Shultz hesitantly responded ‘Well that’s what we are here to find out’ . The pregnant question in the room was ‘what is Skelley getting paid for?’

The Aussie once said (in his article on the Coalition’s Kangaroo Court) that Powers cannot discern the difference between factual evidence and shit on a sheep’s bum. This also seems to apply to Preston Shultz.

John Leavitt