MANSFIELD— Mayor Antonia Moran confirmed in an interview Tuesday that Deputy Mayor Ben Shaiken will fill in for her role following her resignation at a town council meeting last week.
Moran said that the town will also host an open call for people who would like to serve on the town council. She expects the call to be made shortly after the midterm election and said she wouldn’t be involved in nominating the candidate for the Democrat party.
“He is deputy mayor and the role of deputy mayor is to fill in when the mayor isn’t available, so because I’m leaving, that’s his job,” Moran said.
The mayor’s resignation followed an investigation into the former Town Manager Ryan Aylesworth’s use of library security cameras to monitor town employees, and specifically the library director.
A report released by the town said Aylesworth was spending a lot of time looking at the library cameras but the investigation did not find that he violated any policy, as he was monitoring an employee with performance issues. The report added that the cameras were manipulated to follow the library director, and that Aylesworth resigned after the council and he saw no path for his return.
Moran said that her resignation only had to do with her aversion towards searching for a new town manager and did not have to do with the investigation.
“People think that we have been under a huge amount of criticism,” Moran said, adding how she did not think this was entirely the case. “The criticism has come from two people and their followers.”
Moran announced her resignation at the end of the Oct. 13 council meeting during the report of the town council members. Earlier in the meeting, multiple people gave public comment criticizing the council about the investigation, including Republican Town Committee Chair Aaron Bowman and former Councilman Brian Coleman, who have addressed the council about Aylesworth before.
“A finding of no town policy violation does not explain eight months of employee monitoring without notifying school leadership,” Bowman said.
Moran said that the reception she gets from people around town does not match people assuming the council receives large amounts of criticism. Both Republican and Democrat council members also expressed sadness over her resignation when she announced it in the meeting.
“Every time I go out in public, someone comes up to me and says, ‘We support what you’re doing,’” Moran said. She added how she thought most Mansfield residents were supportive of the council during the controversy and called the support“reassuring.”
Moran originally told the Democratic Nominating Committee she would not run for her current term but decided to run because of exciting prospects like construction projects at the senior center, town hall and animal shelter. Moran said that before her announcement, she had been planning to resign for about one or two months.
While Moran had been planning her resignation for weeks, she said her announcement was unexpected to some University of Connecticut officials like Vice President for Student Life and Enrollment Nathan Fuerst, who also co-chairs the relations committee between the town and university.
“It was a total surprise to all of them… I had not said a word to anybody, so there was a lot of surprise,” Moran said.
Moran’s last day as mayor will be Oct. 26 after she completes her roles in two town building committees. She said she’d be available for the council if they need her but intended to start a “clean break” without involvement in town decisions.