Nancy Ramer quits P&Z Commission

Appointed to a full membership position less than a year ago, she departs the scene.

[P&Z Chairman] Richard Maitland ...  said she made the announcement Monday in an email to First Selectman Peter Tesei.

“It’s tough to lose her, I think she was a real contributor to the Commission,” Maitland said. “Her insight was good, she provided a different take on everything.” [emphasis added]

Maitland said Ramer was not at the last briefing and did not think she would be present at Tuesday’s meeting.

“We’ll miss her, that’s for sure,” Maitland said.

Maitland's comments can be termed "damning with faint praise", and understandably so: Ramer was well known as a divorce lawyer in town, and even among that sordid class of legal practitioners*, she stood out as, putting it politely, an abrasive personality. She was an alternate member of the P&Z for years, giving both her fellow commission members and the public ample opportunity to experience her temperament first hand, and I rather doubt any will miss her nor regret that she's ended her service. Nothing in her term became her like the leaving it.

*No slur such as that should fail to except the late Joseph Mitchell Kaye, father of Joel, Jeremy, Jevera and, at last count, 36 other Kaye children. Mr. Kaye was universally respected and admired by every lawyer I knew and probably by everyone who came in contact with him, in life and even in an adversarial setting. He was, sadly, the exception that proves the rule about matrimonial lawyers.