The Powerless Town Hall
Passing the Buck on a $42.8 Million Crisis
When First Selectman Don Lowe didn't like a drone legally photographing the Sherman School, he had no problem asserting his authority—dispatching the State Police and pulling federal FAA agents away from their desks.
But when taxpayers ask Town Hall to regulate actual safety hazards and blatant zoning issues on that exact same $42.8 million construction site, the administration's response is a chilling display of institutional paralysis.
Behind the scenes, top Sherman officials aren't just passing the buck—they are quietly admitting in writing that they have been systematically stripped of the authority to oversee the largest public works project in town history. They are watchdogs who have had their teeth pulled.
Exhibit A: The Sidelined Building Inspector
As we previously reported, the school renovation has been plagued by an exposed roof and emergency, holiday-weekend panic repairs. Naturally, residents assumed the Sherman Building Department would be empowered to closely monitor these structural hazards.
They aren't.
When pressed about the safety and compliance of the site, Sherman Building Inspector William Murphy sent an email effectively waving a white flag. His official advice to residents? "Contact the state."
Rather than a dereliction of duty, Murphy’s response reads like a man who knows his department has been completely outflanked by the sheer scale of a $42.8 million municipal behemoth. By explicitly deferring to the State Building Inspector, Murphy confirmed a terrifying reality: The local Building Department has no real teeth here. They have been sidelined, leaving the oversight of Sherman's most expensive asset to distant bureaucrats in Hartford.
Exhibit B: The Zoning Catch-22
If the Building Department is powerless, what about Zoning?
For weeks, the Sawmill Road neighborhood has been held hostage by the "White Lantern" anomaly—blinding, industrial construction lights blasting from the school's interior into residential homes all night long. First Selectman Don Lowe remained adamant that he was not going to fix it.
So, an official zoning complaint was filed. On February 16, 2026, Zoning Enforcement Officer John Cody responded with a formal letter that was less a refusal to do his job, and more a quiet admission of his own bureaucratic castration.
Because the blinding lights are technically located inside the unfinished building, Cody stated:
"Our lighting regulations are for exterior lighting only."
But it was his next sentence that revealed the true dysfunction at Town Hall: "If I try to issue a Notice of Violation (NOV) I am positive it will be shot down when appealed at the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA)."
Cody isn't refusing to act; he is acknowledging a rigged system. He is admitting that if he tries to stand up for the residents and enforce the rules, the town's own appointed boards will instantly undermine him and hang him out to dry.
The Rogue Tarps and the "CEO" Illusion
Town Hall's official position is now a matter of public record: The inspectors are trapped. They don't have the institutional backing to inspect the building hazards, and they don't have the political cover to enforce the lighting violations.
Yet, within days of these complaints, gray tarps suddenly appeared over the specific school windows facing the homes of the complaining neighbors. The industrial lights are still inside. They are still clearly visible to traffic on Route 37. But a localized blinder was hung just to block the view of the critics.
If the First Selectman refused to fix it, and the Zoning Officer was forced to admit he couldn't fix it, who hung the tarps?
The answer reveals the darkest truth of the Sherman School project: Don Lowe is not in control of his own job site. The construction contractors are making up the rules as they go, throwing up cheap plastic blinders to perform localized damage control while the town's actual enforcement officers are forced to watch from the sidelines.
The First Selectman likes to project the image of a town CEO. But real CEOs don't let their contractors run wild while their own department heads are left emasculated, cowering behind zoning loopholes and state agencies because they know their boss won't back them up.
Sherman doesn't have a CEO. It has a $42.8 million blank check, and absolutely no one holding the pen.