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Do Governor Lamont, state legislators, and people who care about Connecticut's public life watch local television newscasts? Maybe that is part of trying to be good citizen even as most of local TV news is tedious stuff about which no one except the people immediately involved will or can do anything.
A fire 30 miles away, murders in impoverished Bridgeport, a car crash 40 miles away, murders in impoverished Hartford, a bank robbery 50 miles away, murders in impoverished Waterbury, a drug bust in impoverished New London, multi-million-dollar awards for mistaken murder convictions in impoverished New Haven -- such reports may be relieved only by reports about clever and hungry bears burglarizing houses.
But occasionally local TV news captures something serious about which somebody in authority could do something, even if elected officials will not respond to it any more than they respond to the ordinary daily horrors. Such was the case last week when a reporter for WFSB-TV3 in Hartford, Cassidy Williams, tried following up on the numerous public allegations of unprofessional and even unhinged behavior by the president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Zulma Toro.
Williams repeatedly had sought to question Toro about the allegations but couldn't get through by telephone. So the reporter went looking for Toro in person at the university and encountered her in a parking lot. Video broadcast on WFSB showed the reporter trying to ask Toro a question as the university president breezed by, got in her car, and abruptly drove off, though a polite "I have no comment today" would not have delayed her excellency's dinner.
In addition to being courteous, presidents of public universities are obliged to account to the public for their conduct in government office, though Toro's brazen refusal to account for herself seems to have evoked no dismay from anyone in state government. Indeed, if Toro can't account to the public for her conduct on the job, she is not fit to lead a public university, especially since, as the Connecticut Examiner reported, her annual salary is $453,533 and additionally she enjoys stipends of $25,000 for housing and $18,000 for a car. Add her retirement benefits and Toro's annual compensation well exceeds $500,000. But not even that much money buys a little accountability from her.
Fair questions about Toro go beyond the complaints of unprofessional conduct.
The Examiner reports that Toro is the only one of the four regional state university presidents not to have a written employment contract. This looks like an oversight and has not been clearly explained by the Connecticut State Colleges and University system. While Toro is registered to vote in Burlington, she is driving a car registered and plated in Florida, which imposes no property taxes on cars, and has not paid property taxes on it in Connecticut.
Many former Connecticut residents who have moved their primary residence to Florida return to Connecticut in the summer driving cars with Florida plates. That's legal. But to evade property taxes many Connecticut residents have registered their cars in other states without really living there. The racket is notorious and some towns have cracked down on it. Apparently Toro hasn't noticed or cared.
In the last 14 months the two previous heads of the university system, the "chancellors," left office because of scandal -- one financial, the other sexual harassment -- and the chairman of the system's Board of Regents, exposed as inept, resigned in May a month after the second "chancellor" departed. Now the university system says it is investigating Toro. Of course she is entitled to due process, which includes facing her accusers. But the video of her sullenly scurrying away from accountability may be all the public needs to know about her.
The governor got off easy with the first three major recent departures from the CSCU system. So maybe someone in the state Capitol press corps could ask him what he thinks about Toro's unaccountability. He could look like he pays attention and sets standards.
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