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United By A Common Goal
United By A Common Goal
Bethany DTC is committed to support the Bethany community through clear leadership, communication, hard work, inclusion, and transparency.
United By A Common Goal
United By A Common Goal
United By A Common Goal
Maintaining truth, transparency, and inclusion in our local community and beyond. Helping secure Bethany's past, present, and future.
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United By A Common Goal
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We offer a transparent and inclusive place for all to help support, promote, and guide our town forward. Please join us in bettering Bethany for All.
Statements regarding pullman & comley report
From our DTC Chair
The findings of the Pullman & Comley report regarding First Selectwoman Paula Cofrancesco’s response to child sex abuse allegations are shocking and appalling. We encourage all residents to carefully read the full report. Paula Cofranceso’s repeated failures to protect children, and her proactively working to protect the accused sex offender, are represented repeatedly throughout the report. Her ineptitude, malfeasance, and gross neglect have no place in Bethany, especially as its leader. We call on Paula Cofrancesco to resign immediately. Our children and our town deserve better.
-Amy Rushlow
Bethany DTC Chair
From our Selectmen
In July 2024, the Board of Selectmen voted for an independent investigation of multiple allegations of sexual abuse of children by an employee in the town’s Parks and Recreation Department. The board understood the importance to the town of having an independent investigation, especially due to the First Selectwoman’s ties to Parks and Recreation leadership and to the accused and his family. Note: First Selectwoman Paula Cofrancesco recused herself from involvement with the investigation. The board sought and received funding approval from the town for the investigation, issued a public solicitation for proposals from interested firms, reviewed the submitted proposals, and selected Pullman and Comley to conduct the independent investigation. The board did not direct or influence Pullman and Comley’s investigation.
We want to express our sincere appreciation for the thorough investigation done by Hon. Robert Holzberg and his team at Pullman and Comley. For a torn community, the details provided in the report, supported by the documents in the appendices, are especially important to understanding the strong indictment of the response of the First Selectwoman. People in this community are now able to read the report, which is posted on the town website, as well as the primary sources for themselves, and reach their own conclusions.
The report reveals a First Selectwoman more concerned about her own self-interest and that of her family and friends, including the alleged child sex-abuser, than the safety of the children in our community. This is inexcusable. Her repeated deception of not only the members of the Board of Selectmen, but also all of the residents of the Town of Bethany, at meeting after meeting, is a betrayal from a person in a position of trust. Paula Cofrancesco’s refusal to do anything at all to address the safety of our children when she was the only one who was in a position to do so, is inexcusable. Paula Cofrancesco did the opposite of what a competent leader would do when she advocated against greater protections for children in her testimony in opposition to a 2023 bill that would have required municipal childcare programs to be licensed by the State of Connecticut. She did this at a time when she was the only person on the Board of Selectmen who was aware of the serious allegations against a town employee and the obvious risks to the children in the town she was leading.
Paula Cofrancesco’s leadership failures have harmed the Town of Bethany and exposed us to legal liability on multiple fronts. Town residents deserve answers about why municipal laptops and phones were deleted in violation of Connecticut Freedom of Information statutes. Also, the residents of the Town of Bethany need answers about the unexplained, lengthy delay by the Connecticut State Police to make any arrest even after having sufficient probable cause in a case involving child sex abuse. This delay was supported by Paula Cofrancesco, who failed to communicate with the Connecticut State Police in any way, to request any information about the matter even after falsely saying she had tried to get answers from them many times. Town residents need answers.
We agree with the well documented findings of Pullman and Comley’s investigative report and will work to implement all of its recommendations.
Gina Teixeira, Selectwoman
Robert Brinton, Selectman
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