In the 2023 rush to pass a new state budget, a “rat” was inserted into the budget implementer, one of those political favors that occupy a few lines of a bill nearly 1,000 pages long, often inserted without public notice or hearing in the last minute behind-the-scenes horse trading that eventually produces the budget. 

This particular budget rat, however, has a long tale: it concerned a proposed distribution center in the small, wealthy town of Middlebury. 

In this case, the budget rat put very specific zoning restrictions on warehouse construction, prohibiting local zoning officials in towns of less than 8,000 people from approving any warehouse construction of more than 150,000 square feet if it was located on less than 150 acres, contained more than five acres of wetlands, or was within two miles of a school. It fit the proposal in Middlebury perfectly, essentially making the proposed warehouse construction illegal.

The language overrode local zoning authority for small towns at a time when Republicans in the General Assembly were fighting a push by Democrats and organizations like Desegregate CT to override local zoning restrictions to allow for more housing to be built.

The rat was traced through House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, to legislative newcomer, Rep. William Pizzuto, a Republican out of Middlebury who lived in one of the four neighborhoods that would border the proposed distribution center — a sprawling facility that, according to its initial proposal, would have a footprint larger than the Waterbury Mall and be located on a two-lane road down the street from a school. 

The property in question is a 112-acre tract of land that includes the old Timex headquarters and 7.5 acres of wetlands. The proposed development was a joint venture of JSD Partners Holding, owned by Stacy Drubner — daughter of Norman Drubner, principal of Drubner Equities based in Waterbury – and Atlantic Management Corporation under an LLC called Southford Park. They were proposing to build a distribution facility roughly 750,000 square feet in size. While most probably conjure in their minds an Amazon or Walmart distribution facility, the end-user of that facility is still unknown, even as the issue continues in court.

Pizzuto was reportedly helped along by two members of Middlebury’s Economic Development Commission (EDC), Nicole Griffin and Armando P. Paolino, who also happened to be lobbyists, according to CT Mirror. The move by Pizzuto and Middlebury’s EDC members “shocked” Middlebury First Selectman Edward St. John, a Republican who has been the head of Middlebury’s government almost continuously for thirty years. 

“For Hartford to take control of our local zoning laws with no debate or discussion is infuriating,” St. John wrote to Inside Investigator in response to a series of questions. “We are still assessing the fallout from this poorly thought-out action.  This bill devalued our commercial real estate and damaged Middlebury’s ability to attract much-needed business.”

While some Democratic senators and representatives, as well as St. John, pointed out the hypocrisy of a Republican budget rat overriding local zoning, there were some in Middlebury who saw the rat as their last hope to stop a project being pushed through by a town government run with little transparency and little concern for what its residents really wanted.

“Rep. Bill Pizzuto took a huge hit,” said Middlebury Selectwoman Jennifer Mahr, who helped spearhead opposition to the project. “The question nobody asked, was why would he have to do that? The answer is: because the process was cooked.”

John Pollard, a real estate agent and longtime Middlebury resident who is opposed to the project, says the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission “didn’t make it public,” that they were considering this distribution center proposal, instead attempting to pass zoning code text changes to comport with proposed distribution facility during the holiday season when officials knew there would be little public attention or participation.

“It just became obvious the way it was handled by Planning and Zoning, the Conservation Commission, all of the commissions were voting to go forward. It goes back to Ed St. John and his thirty years or whatever of being first selectman,” Pollard said. “He always made it very clear, nobody does business in town unless they go through him first, so if it’s going to happen it’s obvious Ed dictates that it’s either going to happen or it’s not.” 

The development proposal has caused a rift in the town, marked by an anonymous letter, allegations of a lack of transparency by local government officials, questionable decisions, dubious ethics complaints, a landslide political victory, a takeover of the local Democratic Town Committee, claims of retaliation, and an ongoing lawsuit. 

“So, that’s what we’ve been fighting against,” Pollard continued. “The fact that Bill Pizzuto got the bill passed in the state budget was probably the only thing that gave us the opportunity to stop this gross use of this property that would need changes to the zoning regulations to do.”

“This proposed development followed all the proper procedures as required by our land use policies,” St. John said. “The accusation that this project lacked transparency and public engagement is an example of one of the false narratives created around this project.”

While the budget rat may have appeared to put an end to the divisive battle in town, it has not; the fallout, both in the community and in the local government, continues and, in some ways, tensions have even increased in the town as the numerous and vocal opponents to the distribution center have gained an ample foothold in town politics.

“There is no question that the proposed redevelopment of the Timex property has created a divide in this town,” St. John said.

Rep. Pizzuto was not available to comment.

“Rise of the Middlebury Small Town Alliance”

The distribution facility proposal first came before the Middlebury Conservation Commission in November of 2022, proposing a warehouse of 540,000 square feet and a second facility of 180,000 square feet on the property. Although the Timex headquarters property consisted of wetlands, according to meeting minutes from that night, the developer proposed filling in over 15,000 square feet of wetlands but also creating 32,000 square feet of wetlands, “ultimately gaining more wetlands on site.”

Only four of the seven Conservation Commission members were present that evening, including Zoning Enforcement Officer Curt Bosco. Ultimately, the commission determined a public hearing was “not required,” because under statute no public hearing is necessary if the commission finds there is no “significant impact” to wetlands.

A little more than a week later, on December 8, 2022, JSD Partners submitted an application to the town’s Planning and Zoning Committee for text amendments to Middlebury’s zoning regulations. The changes would add “distribution facilities” to the town’s zoning definitions, as well as to the town’s permitted uses for light industrial districts. 

The change was important because the light industrial use regulations included “warehousing,” but not distribution facilities, and a warehouse is defined as “a building used primarily for storage of goods and material prior to distribution that are produced in conjunction with a manufacturing facility.” 

A distribution center like an Amazon or Walmart would not fit that definition, so the text amendments sought to add “Distribution Facilities,” as “a specialized warehouse that serves as a hub to store finished goods, facilitate the picking, packing and sorting process and to ship goods to another location or final destination.” Furthermore, the text changes would increase the allowable height for warehouse and distribution facilities to fifty feet.

Zoning text amendments must be filed with a town’s Council of Governments for review and comment. According to state statute, the COG shall receive written notice of the proposed change “not later than thirty days before the public hearing to be held in relation thereto.” On December 8, 2022, Bosco sent the proposed text amendments to the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, asking that they “expedite” the process “as we have scheduled the Public Hearing for January 5, 2023,” according to email records.

The text amendment changes never happened. For one, the changes were never filed with the Town Clerk’s office and therefore had to be withdrawn. Secondly, an anonymous letter was sent to residents living in the four neighborhoods surrounding the proposed development site making them aware of the possible distribution center. 

“This notice is to make you aware of a potential major change to the Town of Middlebury that is in the works now with the Town of Middlebury administrators, Planning and Zoning, Inland Wetlands and any other town officials needed to approve a proposed 800,000 square foot major distribution facility,” the letter states, with a picture of an Amazon facility. “This will begin the process of making our idyllic town look like a stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. Speak up and tell everyone you know this is in the process now and may get approved if we don’t push back now!” 

The neighborhoods were all HOA’s meaning they were able to quickly mobilize. The January 5, 2023, public hearing saw the public came out in opposition to the text changes. According to meeting minutes, a petition opposing the project signed by 90 people was submitted, “as well as several emails,” sent to Bosco, and 18 people testified in opposition, including Jennifer Mahr and Dana Shepard. Reportedly, many more were not given the time to speak. 

The text amendment discussion was pushed off to the February meeting where it was announced that the amendment application was withdrawn by the applicant. But by then, Mahr and Shepard, who had previously never known each other, had quickly formed the Middlebury Small Town Alliance (MSTA) in opposition to the project, with the help of residents who lived in the affected neighborhoods. 

They immediately began collecting money to mount an opposition campaign, formed email lists to communicate with residents willing to put their skills to use, created a website, lawn signs, and a Go Fund Me page.

“In the space of about two weeks it went from zero to everything,” Mahr said in an interview. “We were everywhere.”

“We got together really quick,” Shepard said. “We knew we didn’t have time. We didn’t even have a bank account and people were giving me cash because we didn’t have a bank account to make checks out to. We got the LLC set up and we could finally get the bank account.”

By January 20, 2023, the MSTA had hired an attorney, Keith Ainsworth, who filed for intervenor status with the Conservation Commission and requested a public hearing. Ainsworth, who was Acting Chair of the CT Council on Environmental Quality and former Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the CT Bar, argued both in writing and before the Conservation Commission on January 31 that it was “the wrong project for the site,” the proposed mitigation plan for the destruction of wetlands was “questionable,” and that the Commission must hold a public hearing because there is “significant impact,” to the area.

Ainsworth was followed by several Middlebury residents who were engineers, certified planners, or had degrees in forestry. The public interest and opposition to this project had grown significantly by this point, putting the Conservation Commission in a spot they were likely not accustomed to: News Channel 8 was there filming, and Vice Chairwoman Mary Barton had to remind residents that if they caused a disruption they would be removed.

The applicant’s professional wetlands scientist, Matt Sanford, questioned Ainsworth’s credentials to make his assertions, and the Commission moved toward a third-party “peer review,” and the town hired George Logan of REMA Ecological Services to visit the site and give his report on the proposal and its environmental effects. 

Meanwhile, MSTA hired soil scientist and wetland scientist Steven Danzer. Both presented their findings at the Conservation Commission meeting the following month. Although Commissioner Barton had initially stated she believed the public would be allowed to walk the site, JSD Partners did not allow the public — nor Danzer and MSTA’s other experts — the ability to inspect the grounds, claiming insurance concerns. 

The meeting was again attended and watched online by hundreds. Ultimately the commission voted to find that the application to develop the site was, in fact, significant activity and warranted a public hearing.

The public hearing for March 28 was scheduled at Pomperaug High School to allow for a large crowd. It began at 7 p.m., adjourned at 9:56 p.m. and was continued to April, 4, where another nearly three hour meeting heard from residents opposed to the project. Public hearing was continued again to April 11, a meeting that mostly involved expert and attorney testimony, and continued once again to April 18, which was more expert and attorney argument. In the middle of all these hearings and arguments, the applicant submitted new plans to mitigate some of the wetland’s impact and place the residential part of the land into an easement.

Over the course of two special meetings on May 1 and May 10, the Conservation Commission deliberated on the findings of the applicant’s experts and that of MSTA’s, with Bosco offering a PowerPoint presentation during the May 10 meeting. Ultimately, the Commission members voted 3-1 to approve the application. 

The MSTA then appealed the Conservation Commission’s decision in superior court on May 25, claiming the Commission ignored feasible alternatives, ignored environmental impacts, and conducted proceedings in an unfair manner, making particular note of the fact that the Commission’s Chairman Paul Bowler was absent from most of the meetings yet showed up in time to vote for approving the project. 

The MSTA then started a petition calling for the resignation of First Selectman St. John, Curt Bosco, Paul Bowler, and another Conservation Commissioner George Tzepos, claiming “we have lost confidence in each person’s ability to represent Middlebury citizens’ wishes in matters affecting the entire town.”

None of that happened. No one resigned. What did happen, however, was the 2023 budget rat. 

Pizzuto was not the only state legislator aware of these proceedings; the various meetings had been attended by both Sen. Eric Bethel, R-Watertown, and Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, but neither went as far out on a limb as Pizzuto, who, meeting minutes reflect, spoke in opposition to the project during one of the public hearings before the Conservation Commission.

The new state law obviously threw a major wrench in the works for Southford Park, LLC. It also caused MSTA to file a second appeal based on the new law. While the MSTA lost their first appeal, the second appeal based on the 2023 budget rat was successful in overturning the Conservation Commission’s decision, thus far. 

But that is far from the entire story. The disruption in Middlebury continued even after the new law appeared to quash the project. It largely involved the town’s use of its code of ethics that resulted in several town officials resigning, being pushed out of their position, or having to retract opinions that were in opposition to the distribution facility. 

In essence, if you were a town official, elected or otherwise, you had to keep your mouth shut, and could have nothing whatsoever to do with the MSTA. The use of the ethics provision was part of the MSTA’s petition seeking the resignation of St. John, Curt Bosco, and other Conservation Commission members.

“Middlebury’s Code of Ethics has been improperly used to silence town officials’ rights to express a personal opinion on an issue of great public interest,” the petition states.

“Political Witch Hunt”

On January 23, 2023, the town’s Economic Development Commission voted to draft and send a resolution to the Planning and Zoning Commission urging them to reject the text amendment application that would allow the distribution center to go through.

“The Economic Development Commission (the EDC) maintains that as the town’s growth continues the EDC must recognize not just the desire for economic development and added value to the grand list to occur in such zones, but that such development needs to occur with a comprehensive approach and understanding of other residential and commercial development as it has evolved to date in such areas,” the resolution states. “Therefore, the proposal currently before the Town Planning and Zoning Commission should be rejected in favor of other areas within town that are better suited for such development.”

But that resolution earned the EDC a threat of an ethics violation by Middlebury Town Attorney Robert Smith, and the resolution was left off the official meeting minutes – an FOI violation — only being included later in an amended version of the minutes. The EDC chairman was notified “that any opinion or resolution between officials in the Economic Development Commission could not be communicated to any other agency, per Middlebury Code of Ethics paragraph 10,” according to meeting minutes.

Paragraph 10, of the town’s Code of Ethics, states that, “No officer, official or employee shall appear in behalf of a private interests before any agency of the Town, nor shall such officer, official or employee represent private interests in any action or proceeding against the Town when said appearance or representation would be in conflict with or would tend to impair his or her independence of judgement and action in the performance of official duties such as officer, official or employee.”

Just five days earlier, during a January 17, 2023, BOS meeting, St. John read a statement aloud to residents in attendance saying that selectmen and other town officials were prohibited from giving their opinion on a project.

“I want to let you know that Board of Selectmen and all town’s officials are specifically prohibited by our town code of ethics and by Connecticut law from appearing on behalf of or influencing any matter before the town’s board or commissions,” St. John said. “In short, we cannot appear on either your behalf or on behalf of the developer before any town board or commission. The last thing anyone would want is the developer suing the town for lost profits because a town employee or officer tried to influence the independent decision making of the Planning and Zoning Commission.”

According to meeting minutes, St. John said the statement was so residents would understand why the selectmen were not discussing the proposal nor attending the Planning & Zoning Commission meetings.

However, it’s difficult to say what private entity the EDC was acting on behalf of – the MSTA had only formed three days earlier — but that paragraph of the ethics code has been, and continues to be, used as a cudgel to hit back at nearly anyone opposed to the project that serves in any official capacity in the town. 

While approval of the project would benefit and potentially enrich a private entity, if one were opposed to the project and in any way aligned with the MSTA, they were accused of acting on behalf of a “private interest” and a complaint would be filed against them with the Middlebury Ethics Commission.

Middlebury’s Ethics Commission, however, is a bit odd. It held no meetings between 2018 and 2022. It met once in 2022 to approve meeting minutes from 2016, and then didn’t meet again until 2024 when ethics complaints began to be filed. It’s chairman, Paul Bialobrzeski was an attorney who was disbarred in New York in 2017 and voluntarily resigned from the bar in Connecticut pending disciplinary actions by the Statewide Grievance Council. 

Also on the board, as of 2024, is Sharon Bosco, wife of ZEO and Conservation Commissioner Curtis Bosco, who the MSTA saw as one of the principal drivers of the project and petitioned for his resignation. As the former head of the Middlebury Democratic Town Committee, Curtis had nominated her for the role.

In a January 27 letter to the Planning and Zoning Commission, Attorney Ainsworth drew attention to Bosco’s role as both Zoning Enforcement Officer and Conservation Commissioner, as well as the ethics threat made against the EDC from issuing their resolution.

“Middlebury staff member and Zoning Enforcement Officer, Curt Bosco has been one of the primary contacts for the applicant sending and receiving information and providing guidance regarding the pending matter. As Mr. Bosco also serves in the capacity of Conservation Commissioner, it seems that there is an undue risk of ex parte communications during the pendency of an application,” Ainsworth wrote. “It is difficult enough for the public to exercise their rights of public participation in a fair and unbiased hearing without the influence of back door unilateral communications. This is especially so in light of the fact that the First Selectman and the town attorney met with Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Economic Development Commission the day after the January 23, 2023, EDC meeting. In that meeting they informed, some might say intimidated, Mr. McAuliffe into removing from the official minutes, a resolution disapproving of the proposed distribution center which the EDC had voted on and approved. This sanitization of the EDC minutes under threat by town officials acting under color of law is a violation of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act §1-225 and quite possibly a civil rights violation under federal law.”

But McAuliffe wasn’t the only official affected by the liberal use of the ethics code to silence opposition. According to The Bee News, Peter Trinchero resigned from both the Retirement Committee and the Ethics Commission because of his thoughts about the distribution facility.

“He said he felt his being a member of the Ethics Commission meant he couldn’t express his opinion about the facility,” the Bee reported. “He said a lot of residents don’t want it, and those who do want it are not saying so.”

That same month, Democrat Middlebury Selectman Ralph Barra also resigned from his selectman position because of the ethics threat overhanging opposition to the distribution facility. 

“I feel there is a conflict between my beliefs in how our town should be developed, and the current situation unfolding,” Barra wrote in his April 19, 2023, resignation letter. “This conflict includes the code of ethics, which excludes me from expressing my own opinion, my views on the distribution facility, and lastly, I do not want my personal views to be associated with that of the Democratic Party.” At the time, Curt Bosco was the head of the DTC in Middlebury.

“In the beginning, Ed (St. John) asked us to stay neutral, and I tried to,” Barra said in an interview. “There was no transparency. When you have a project as big as this one and the people have no input and you’re kind of blocking out the process, I start digging my heels in the ground.”

“I think they caught wind that I was against the distribution center, so a couple months later they came out with this code of ethics and talked about it,” Barra continued. “I said I’m not going to sit in that seat and keep my mouth shut, so I had a choice of be in violation of their code of ethics or resigning, and it came to the point that I resigned. I still believe it was the right thing to do.”

Barra was replaced on the BOS by J. Paul Vance, former long-time spokesman for the Connecticut State Police in May of 2023. 

“An ethics code is okay, but an ethics commission immediately becomes a witch-hunt for whatever party is in power,” said attorney Ainsworth, who not only represented the MSTA in their legal appeals, but also represented Jennifer Mahr after she was elected to the Board of Selectman and faced ethics complaints because of her role in the MSTA. “People are just going to use it to bash each other. Just because an ethics complaint is pending becomes a stigma on that person and suppresses their free speech.”

“This particular administration in Middlebury is singularly authoritarian, suppressive, and abusive of fairness because they’ve been in power so long, and there’s been one-party rule for so long, they just assumed that everything they’ve done is right because they win,” Ainsworth continued. “There’s a lot of things wrong in Middlebury that have been going on and none of them have anything to do with people saying they don’t want a warehouse in the town.”

Ainsworth said the town administration also made staff members sign a pledge “that if you say anything that’s against what the administration wants, that’s unethical.” Ainsworth acknowledges that town employees are expected not to take sides when it comes to the execution of their duties, but he says that silencing them outside of their duties amounted to a violation of free speech rights.

The use of the town code of ethics and its heretofore non-existent Ethics Commission has been most pronounced when it came to Jennifer Mahr winning a selectman seat in November of 2023 and taking office while the MSTA had appeals pending against the Conservation Commission in superior court. 

First Selectman St. John and others claim it is a “conflict of interest” because she is the head of an organization that is suing the town, and a violation of the code of ethics. Mahr was in office roughly six months before the first ethics complaint was lodged against her by Francis Barton Jr., husband of Conservation Commission Vice-Chairman Mary G. Barton. 

In the complaint, Barton claims Mahr, “has a financial and personal conflict of interest,” because of MSTA’s appeal of the Conservation Commission’s decision, and that she “represented private interests in discussions before the Board of Selectman,” because she did not recuse herself from a discussion about whether the town should allocate money to defend against the MSTA’s appeals.

According to meeting minutes, Mahr argued that BOS had never discussed whether to allocate money to defend these appeals, while St. John claimed Mahr was trying to “hamstring our legal ability to protect the town of Middlebury from a lawsuit which you were in parcel to filing,” and that it was a “conflict of interest and an ethics violation for the town of Middlebury.”

Mahr has long maintained that the MSTA is a distinct and separate entity from herself – she is not listed by name as a plaintiff — and that she receives no financial gain from it. Ainsworth is quick to point out that the legal action MSTA has taken is not a lawsuit – there is no monetary gain or loss from winning or losing – but rather an appeal. Furthermore, he states that Mahr is simply doing what she was elected to do: “you cannot sanction someone from taking a position they ran on,” Ainsworth said.

“This is her First Amendment right and also her right to free association for all the people who elected her because they elected her on this issue,” Ainsworth said. 

The Ethics Commission took Barton’s complaint and discussed it under the thinly veiled anonymity of a selectman who is “suing Middlebury,” during their May 21, 2024, public meeting before determining “there is a conflict of interest,” and openly wondering if they should let Mahr know a complaint had been filed against her.

That first ethics complaint ended up being withdrawn due to a number of procedural errors, Ainsworth states, but a second complaint was recently filed against Mahr for the same March 2024 BOS discussion. Ainsworth claims this second complaint filed by the Republican chairman of the Middlebury Board of Finance, also suffers from procedural deficiencies in that it was filed beyond the six-month statute of limitations.

“This matter arises from what can charitably be described as a political witch hunt initiated by a foot soldier of the Edward St. John administration in its waning days,” Ainsworth wrote in his motion to dismiss to the Ethics Commission. “To pretend that this matter is a dispassionate inquiry into the integrity of public administration in Middlebury is ironic, hypocritical and an insult to intelligence.”

“I expect that they’ll file a third one and who knows if they’ll get that one right, but they’ll still be a violation of my client’s constitutional right and her civil right,” Ainsworth said. 

Meanwhile, Mahr has filed a complaint with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission against the Ethics Commission for deviating from their February 19, 2025, special meeting agenda to discuss a newly received complaint against her in executive session.

But Mahr is not the only official forced before the Ethics Commission because of their association with MSTA. Francis Barton also filed an ethics complaint against Margaret “Peggy” Gibbons who serves on the Conservation Commission alongside Barton’s wife for being the sole, dissenting vote against allocating more town money to appeal the superior court’s decision during a February 11, 2025, special meeting.

Gibbons had consistently voted against the project but was always outvoted by the other commissioners. The difference this time was that she associated with, and lent some of her personal time to, helping the MSTA, according to a letter she and her attorney sent to the Ethics Commission, which similarly makes arguments based on constitutional principles.

“Margaret Gibbons has a constitutional right to support whatever causes she wishes to support and to advocate for whatever positions she wishes to advocate. She did not forfeit those rights when she agreed to serve her community as a member of the Conservation Commission. She cannot be compelled by means of an ethics proceeding to agree with positions taken by the administration on issues with which she disagrees or to give up her right to support her positions in any way permitted by law,” the letter states. “It was Gibbons’ opinion that the legal fees to bring this motion were not proper for the taxpayers to pay. If the developer felt that Judge Cordani was wrong, the developer was in a better position to pay for an appeal or motion asking Judge Cordani to reconsider his decision.”

The letter goes on to note that Gibbons was not a member of MSTA but is “friendly with most of its members,” and in that regard offered to “help them with an administrative task as part of their fundraising efforts, which is a core of free speech and free association.” She states that she received no compensation for this and MSTA has no business before the Conservation Commission.

“To find that I had committed an ethics violation, simply because I refused to vote with the majority, simply because I could not be swayed from my position, would appear to the public as a back door method of removing Commissioners who cannot be controlled by the majority,” Gibbons wrote. The complaint against Gibbons was subsequently dismissed.

And while it might appear as if “the majority” in town government was pushing for this distribution center, First Selectman St. John and Selectman J. Paul Vance both came out against the project in November of 2023, taking a motion to say they do not support the project — well after Selectman Barra and Peter Trinchero had resigned over concerns they could not express their opposition on it, and after the EDC had been admonished for their opposition.

More to the point, it came following Mahr’s election victory unseating Republican Selectwoman Elaine Strobel by a wide margin.

According to meeting minutes, St. John said that he and fellow selectmen were accused of supporting the project and he was called a “crook.”

“There isn’t a soul in this room you can produce where Ed St. John, Elaine Strobel, John Vance, or Ralph Barra ever went out and said they were supporting this project and waving the flag,” St. John said. “We all took the position to let the process take its course. It backfired horribly.”

Reached for comment, Selectman Vance notes that he was appointed and then re-elected in the middle of the distribution center debate and “saw my role as someone who will listen to everyone and learn, before making my decision.”

“I too have been opposed to the proposed distribution center,” Vance wrote in an emailed response to questions. “I am not afraid to give my opinion and I gave my opinion that I am opposed to a distribution center. If that is an Ethics violation, well, I guess I will wait to see the complaint against me.”

“What’s interesting is six months later, all three select people took the same position I did, they did not support the distribution center, which I find odd,” Barra said. “Now they sided with me. They decided they were against the distribution center.”

St. John and Vance were clearly unhappy with Mahr’s victory, a dynamic that has continued to play out in contentious BOS meetings, but Mahr’s victory also highlighted a political situation in Middlebury that soon came to a head as Democrats began to flex some muscle, pushing back against what they saw as a single political party in town and staging what some jokingly refer to as “the coup.”

The Uni-Party Coup

When Barra, a Democrat, stepped down in April of 2023 over his concern about the distribution center and the town’s ethics policy, the head of Middlebury’s DTC, Curt Bosco, provided four names and resumes to St. John to choose a replacement. He chose J. Paul Vance, stating that Vance could help bring some pressure on the state legislature to change criminal laws that “let these individuals out on the street within hours of committing these crimes,” according to May 15 meeting minutes.

The town, however, had been under Republican control for thirty years and some felt that town Democratic party leadership was too comfortable working arm-in-arm with Republican leadership. As former head of the DTC in Middlebury, Bosco says they were just trying to get by in a Republican-dominated town. During his thirty or so years as first selectman, St. John has consolidated authority in his office: the first selectman handles all town employee matters, according to the town’s attorney, and has recently required all FOI requests to go through his office.

“It was a challenge to lead the Democratic party, outnumbered by more than a 2 to 1 majority,” Bosco said in an emailed response to questions. “We always cooperated well with our Republican counterparts in the best interest of the community. We recruited exemplary Democrat talent to serve on boards and commissions. This is demonstrated by the fact that many Democrats serve in leadership positions on several of these agencies.”

But not everyone saw it that way. The furor over the distribution center, and Bosco’s role in voting for it, created the desire by some town Democrats to see more pushback against the ruling party. 

“Curt Bosco and the Democrats were basically just a side arm of the Republicans and doing everything our first selectman wanted them to do,” said Dana Shepard, current member of the Middlebury DTC and cofounder of the MSTA. “We called them the uni-party.” 

“The DTC as it was then configured was basically a Republican puppet,” Ainsworth said. “The State Central Committee wanted absolutely nothing to do with the DTC in Middlebury because they knew it was absolutely bought and sold completely by the Republicans. It was not in opposition to them. They would do anything they wanted, appoint whoever they wanted. There was no Democratic party.”

Although that may have been the underlying belief at the time, it was essentially confirmed for Democrat voters in Middlebury during the 2023 municipal campaign. Middlebury splits their elections: the first selectman is elected every four years, while the other two selectmen are elected every two. Since there must be minority representation on the BOS, each respective party nominates their candidate and there is always a spot for a Democrat.

Incumbent Democrat Selectman Vance and incumbent Republican Selectwoman Elaine Strobel were virtually guaranteed an election victory until Jennifer Mahr joined the race as a petitioning, unaffiliated candidate, riding the support she had behind her opposition to the distribution center.

Vance, too, had come out against the distribution center in an October Facebook post in which he said he didn’t believe it was right for the town, but it appears not many really believed it, particularly as he was selected by both Bosco and St. John, who many believed were trying to push the project through. 

Plus, Vance, a Democrat, was campaigning with Republican Strobel against Mahr. Vance and Strobel shared election mailers and signs; massive posters on election day featured Vance saying he voted for Strobel and Strobel saying she voted for Vance. First Selectman St. John personally donated $250 to the Middlebury DTC in October of 2023; Bosco and Vance donated to the Republican Town Committee in 2024, according to state records.

Vance addressed the signage – apparently in response to a letter to the editor – in a Facebook post in November of 2023, just before the election saying, “personal attacks are thrown out in an attempt to muddy the political discourse,” and that he is opposed to the distribution center.

“First, I have been a registered democrat since I was 18 years old. I have not changed my political affiliation to attempt to trick the voters,” Vance wrote. “Finally, I laughed at a letter to the editor that attacked me as a part of the ‘regime’ and cast aspersions because of my political signs. Over the past five (yes, 5!!) months I have served on the Board of Selectmen. I have respect for those who I serve with and for all of our volunteers – even when I do not agree with them on issues. Yes, I share lumber for my large signs with another candidate. I also lawn signs with my name only throughout Middlebury.”

“I am proud to be a Democrat and I will continue to advocate for our working families,” Vance wrote to Inside Investigator. “That does not mean I must agree with every policy or position that a Democrat takes. I was elected to represent everyone. Signs do not vote, residents vote.”

Vance and Strobel’s bipartisan effort, however, failed. Mahr won with 39 percent of the vote in a four-way race, which included another petitioning candidate. Mahr received 1,764 votes compared to 1,125 for Vance, and 1,010 for Strobel. While that doesn’t sound like much, St. John received only 971 votes when he ran unopposed for reelection in 2021.

Mahr was not exactly welcomed to the position by the incumbents. As indicated above, St. John saw the election as evidence that their silence on the distribution center had “backfired horribly,” and Middlebury BOS meetings have become contentious, to say the least, but it backfired in another way for both Vance and Bosco.

In January of 2024, town Democrats, including Dana Shepard and Sally Romano, realized they didn’t need the chairperson of the DTC – Bosco – to gavel in a meeting. So, while Vance and Bosco were having a meeting down the hall, fellow Democrats gathered in a room, gaveled themselves into a caucus meeting, elected a temporary chair, a temporary secretary, and 25 new members.

“We talked to attorneys, we talked to State Central, we got our ducks in a row,” Shepard said. “We managed to communicate on the side with all these Democrats in town who would be interested in being on the DTC, and didn’t talk to anybody previously on it, and had everybody show up at the meeting.”

Middlebury DTC chair Sally Romano says she doesn’t like to call it a coup, but rather a “big changeover,” opening a “closed system” to new people and new leadership. Having lived most of her life in Middlebury with St. John as first selectman, she felt that “the system was more and more closed off to other voices, and that’s really what I saw happening with the DTC.”

“I think the DTC didn’t meet often, if at all, and the person in charge of it was very close to the Republican first selectman. When things are running smoothly you tend to overlook the lack of outside input. But then there was the distribution center, and things did become more contentious and problematic and big changes were happening and lot of people’s voices weren’t being heard,” Romano said. “The issue for me was having more voices at the table and figuring out a way to help that happen in the town.”

The “change-over,” however, didn’t sit well with Bosco or Vance, who immediately moved to fill a number of vacancies on town boards and commissions, including getting Bosco’s wife onto the Ethics Commission. 

“My wife and I are very careful to honor her oath and do not discuss such issues,” Bosco said. “Mrs. Bosco’s profession is a Human Resources professional, so discretion for her is paramount.”

Although Shepard described Bosco as “apoplectic” during the DTC change, Bosco states he has expressed his “delight” that “a large contingency of new Democrats has emerged recently,” possibly because of the distribution center debate, and that he has offered his support to them.

“It’s a process of rebuilding,” Romano said. “It’s a slow process, building out, and making good on that promise of being inclusive and listening to various perspectives.”

Since the change, however, the Middlebury DTC’s nominations to boards and commissions have routinely been shot down by St. John and Vance, eliciting frustration among town Democrats. At the end of a very contentious BOS meeting on April 7, 2025, Romano told the BOS that the Middlebury DTC was “incredibly disappointed at the dismissive way we’ve been treated by the Board of Selectmen.” 

Vance was questioned by other members of the public as to why he voted to support St. John’s selection for the Greenway Committee, while a Democrat member was “unceremoniously bounced.” Vance responded that the individual was qualified and supported by other members of the Greenway Committee, but the exchange was tense.

“You as the Democratic selectman should be helping to represent the Democratic Town Committee and our nominations and standing up to any of the other BS that is going around and keep somebody that is more than qualified for the Greenway Committee on the Greenway Committee,” Shepard said during public comment. “I think this is ridiculous, you should be embarrassed to consider yourself a Democrat.”

“They need to consider that there may be facts or circumstances that either cause a candidate being considered for appointment or another candidate being presented might have talents and training that would benefit our town,” Vance said to Inside Investigator. “There can be a difference of opinion and if mine differs we should always agree or disagree in a polite manner as I was taught by my mother.”

“As for the DTC, I wish them well and I have let them know that my door is always open and I will always listen,” Vance continued.

“There’s been a lot of flexible interpretation of the town charter that does seem to change to prevent some of our nominees from contributing, which is unfortunate,” Romano said. “There are certain things that are beyond our control in terms of what decisions the Board of Selectmen is going to make with the people we put forward. My hope is that change will be coming next fall in the elections.”

Continuing Fallout

It was also in January of 2024 that the Middlebury Planning and Zoning Commission approved text changes to the town’s regulations, the site plans, and an excavation exception requested by Southford Park. With the new state law in place, Southford Park attempted a workaround by dividing up the land into different parcels. The MSTA appealed the Planning & Zoning decision to superior court as well.

Ultimately, both appeals against the Conservation Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission filed by the MSTA were successful due to the change in state law, with Judge Cordani issuing his decision on three consolidated cases in January of 2025.

“The legislative history of the statute indicates that the legislature had Middlebury in mind when it passed the statute and may have even had this particular project in mind,” Judge Cordani wrote. “Although not absolutely clear, it appears that the legislature may have intended to disallow this particular project. The court notes that no party has challenged the validity of the statute but have instead merely challenged its applicability.” 

Following the court decision, First Selectman St. John emailed a statement reminding recipients of the BOS vote in November of 2023 not to support the distribution center; “Now, let us unite and keep up the fantastic work to ensure Middlebury remains a wonderful place to work, live, and raise a family.”

The BOS then voted 2-1 to expend a limited amount of town legal funds asking Cordani to reconsider his decision. Cordani later denied Middlebury’s and Southford Park’s motion to reconsider. The company has now filed an appeal to the the appellate court, which is still pending.

And while the final outcome of the distribution center is still pending, the fallout from the fight continues in Middlebury. St. John says opposition to the project has resulted in “incivility toward our volunteers,” that is “unjustified” and “deeply disturbing.”

“Large development projects, whether commercial or residential, tend to have passionate discussions on both sides of the issue. Ironically, some of the most heated debates I can recall were the development of the areas surrounding the current Timex Property, but they were mostly civil,” St. John said. “That being said, the rhetoric regarding this project is nothing like I have seen before. What I found deeply disturbing were the attacks on the dedicated volunteers serving on our town boards and commissions. Many of those who have served for decades on these committees have been instrumental in making Middlebury the great town that it is. To hear them being attacked and having their dedication to the town questioned was disturbing.”

St. John said social media, which the MSTA used to their advantage, amplified concerns about the project spreading inaccurate information; “before you know it, a false narrative became like gospel.” 

St. John claims that there are many in town who support the project, but they have been afraid to speak out because of the “incivility” of the opposition.

“We cannot have an environment where our residents don’t feel safe expressing their opinions,” St. John said, adding that Middlebury needs to grow its business base in order to lessen the property tax burden on residents; the very public reaction to the distribution facility will make it difficult to attract new businesses.

The first selectman election in November could determine how Middlebury moves forward as a community following the rift over the distribution center. Vance would only say that he looks forward to continuing to work for the people of Middlebury; St. John, on the other hand, affirmed that he is running for another term as first selectman to prevent the town from being controlled by the MSTA.

“There are challenging days ahead for Middlebury, and we need strong, knowledgeable leadership,” St. John said. “Over the last 2 years, we have seen what was briefly a group of concerned citizens get hijacked and turned into a Political Action Committee. The leaders behind this PAC have demonstrated a horrible shortsightedness with their actions and lack of understanding when it comes to the reality of running a municipality.”

“Turning control of Middlebury over to them at any time would be a bad idea, but even more so at this critical juncture,” St. John continued.

But St. John might face a tough election: Jennifer Mahr has completed the petition to get on the ballot for first selectman and is currently waiting on the Secretary of State’s Office to confirm her status as a candidate. Mahr says she believes St. John fails to understand what has happened in Middlebury over the last two years.

“I’m no stranger to men needing to demean a woman’s talents and accomplishments to make themselves feel better, but the real insult here is to Middlebury voters,” Mahr said. “Their mandate has been crystal clear, and the only shortsighted bad ideas have been St. John’s repeated efforts to thwart the people’s will. Middlebury voters will decide in November what kind of leadership they trust, and when they do, that will be the only reality that matters.” 

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