The Board of Selectmen will take one month to vote on the recommendations of a Board of Ethics investigation into Planning and Zoning Commission Chair Raymond Martin, according to First Selectman David Bindelglass.
“There is a process which is laid out in the statutes, but like many processes … it’s not perfectly [or] clearly laid out. How is the notice that has to be sent to somebody that we are proposing to remove be formulated? Is it the result for instance of a private session of the Board of Selectmen or a public session? There are questions. Do not confuse delays … that have to do with process for anything other than that,” said Bindelglass at the Board of Selectmen meeting on April 6.
Stratford police arrested Martin on Sept. 7, 2021 for allegedly lying about an accident after he hit a parked car and left the scene. Martin pleaded guilty on Jan. 31 in Bridgeport Superior Court under the Alford Doctrine. He received a one-year suspended sentence followed by two years of conditional discharge.
At a Feb. 2 Board of Selectmen meeting, Martin requested that the selectmen ask the ethics board to investigate his Sept. 7 arrest so that he could be given the opportunity to explain his acceptance of the guilty verdict and “any other prior incidents, criminal or otherwise.”
Martin’s prior criminal incidents include a conviction in 2017 for his admitted role in a steroid distribution ring. Federal authorities sentenced Martin, who was a member of Easton’s Police Commission at the time of his arrest in 2015, to three years of probation and ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine.
During public comments at the Feb. 2 meeting, many Easton residents urged the Board of Selectmen to remove Martin from his position on the P&Z, especially given his multiple criminal incidents.
Martin’s five-year term on the P&Z expires on Jan. 2, 2024.
