Law Office of Michael Luzzi, LLC 1172 Townsend Avenue New Haven, Connecticut 06512 Michael J. Luzzi Phone: 203-404-5155 Fax: 203-886-1047 December 16, 2021 Nina T. Pirrotti, Esq. Garrision, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald FOR SETTLEMENT PURPOSES ONLY & Pirrotti, P. 405 Orange Street New Haven, Connecticut 06511 Re: Eileen Parlato Dear Attomey Pirrotti: Thave your November 30, 2021 letter. The Town is interested in exploring whether it is possible to amicably resolve this matter. However, prior to starting that discussion itis necessary to correct some of the many inaccuracies in your letter which I fee! will likely assist us in meeting on common ground to consider your client’s goals. Your central point that East Haven discriminated against Ms. Parlato in the promotion process is simply wrong for many reasons. Most importantly, the candidate screcning process was conducted by an independent panel comprised primarily with fire department officials from other towns, ‘They interviewed each candidate with a set of industry standard questions, and separately evaluated the responses. Ms. Parlato performed poorly in the interview and was not geaded high enough to proceed to the next stage. Contrary to the points in your letter, Ms. Patlato was not entitled to a promotion simply because she had served many years as Battalion Chief. While her service is commendable, the advancement process involved here was not based on seniority. Furthermore, your letter also highlights selected aspects of Ms, Parlato’s relationship with former Assistant Chief Licata. Buc there is no foundation for the apparent claim that having a close relationship with Mr. Licata somehow qualified your client to step into his position. Honestly, the relevance of the alleged Licata endorsement is lost on me, since he was not entitled to choose his replacement, and the promotion process was designed to prevent such involvement. You shouldNina T. Pisrotti, Esq, December 16, 2021 Page 2 of 4 also be aware that is reported that Ms. Parlato and Mr. Licata have an out of department business relationship together as well as a longstanding out of work friendship /relationship. Your recitation of events that you claim occurred almost thitty years ago when Ms. Parlato ‘was first hired is irrelevant to this matter. Undeniably in all areas, East Haven has made great strides in being diverse and inclusive. Under Chief Macarelli’s leadership all females who have made the eligibility lists have received conditional offers of employment. At best your letter is puzzling on this point. On one hand, you spend pages wrongly accusing the department of discrimination and misogyny. On the other hand, you assert categorically that “there is not a shadow of a doubt that hhad Ms. Parlato appeared before the Board of Fire Commissioners, they would have chosen her as, the EHFD’s next AC.” Its difficult to understand how you can claim that a process established by the Fire Commission was discriminatory, while also saying that the Commissioners would have promoted your client. Likewise, your intimation that somehow Ms. Parlato was entitled to the position because of her father’s former position on the Town Council is entirely inconsistent with the claim that she should have been hired in a merit-based evaluation. Your further suggestion that Ms. Parlato’s town residency should have been a consideration in passing over Mr. Rosa is disingenuous at best. ‘Your letter is long on unsubstantiated accusations and short on any suggestions for attending to your client’s complaints. While the Town is interested in having a conversation about resolving the matter, you have not made a settlement demand, or even suggested a course of action. Be assured that the Town will vigorously defend any claim of discrimination in this hiring process. With that being said, 1 believe that I have a duty of behalf of my client to entertain a reasonable resolution with your client short of litigation, and I am certainly willing to do so. In addition to everything outlined herein, please also accept this demand that your client preserve all documents, tangible things and electronically stored information (“ESI”) (collectively “evidence”) within her possession, custody and control, that in any way relate to her work for East Haven or work performed with Mr. Licata and that are are relevant to the issues in this matter or that may lead to the discovery of relevant information. By way of example, and not as an exhaustive of limited list, Ms. Parlato is to maintain a “litigation hold” on all relevant evidence including, but not limited to, the following: © All documents relating to Ms. Parlato’s work for which she has received pay. © All emails and/or text messages between Ms. Parlato and any person concerning work for which she has receive pay, including those between fire department personnel. * All emails and/or text messages between Ms. Parlato and any person concerning tetirement or promotion in work for which she has receive pay, including those between fire department personnel. ‘* Alllemails and/ot text messages between Ms. Parlato and any current or former East Haven Fire Department personnel; © All email, text messages, Slack (or other such internal messaging programs) messages and other communication berween her and among Mr. Licata to include group textNina T. Pirrott, Esq December 16, 2021 Page 3 of 4 messages and emails '* Allemails and/or text messages between Ms. Parlato and any members of the East Haven ‘Town Council You should take the broadest possible view of the potential scope of the potential ligation and the definition of evidence that fall within this demand. ‘The terms “documents,” “records” and 1" are broadly defined and include, but are not limited to: all correspondence, notes, drafts, memoranda, work papers and other writings; e-mail, text messages, voicemail and other electronic communications (2.., logged IM); databases, such as Slack; digitized images; database spreadsheets (eg, Excel”, etc.); materials on hard drives, shared drives, backup tapes, cloud storage, compact discs, thumb drives or on any other type or form of electronic media; PowerPoint” slides and presentations; information maintained or stored on computerized calendars and personal information managers (PIM), cell phones, cloud storage, personal laptops or home computers; internet usage, telephone and network access logs; web sites and web pages; and all similar data and information that is stored on, maintained on, utilized on, or transmitted via a computer or computer network, including the Intemet. ESI includes metadata, which is information about a particular record or data set which describes how, when and by whom it was collected, created, accessed, or modified as well as how it is formatted. All hardware and storage media containing such electronically stored information must be preserved, regardless of whether duplicates of the information exist on other hardware, systems or platforms. All inital, interim, draft and final ions of any of the foregoing materials are within the definitions of “documents,” “records” and im Be further advised that a mere file backup of a hard drive or similar storage device is inadequate ESI preservation. You must image the hard drive or other storage device in bit-stream copies where all areas, used and unused, of the storage device are copied. Any relevant files that have been deleted that are reasonably recoverable should be immediately undeleted. ESI should be preserved in its native form and it should not be preserved by such means that would remove or degrade the ability to search the ESI by electronic means or make it difficult or burdensome to access or use the information efficiently in the litigation. This notice also applies with respect to all documents created from this point forward. 1 will make myself available to review your response to this letter if you choose to respond in that fashion, but I am certainly also more than willing to have a conversation with you to move this matter forward. Please be Further advised that the Town expressly reserves all of its rights Luzzi, Esquire ‘own Attorney, Towa of East Haven