On March 19, 2019, Board of Education member Christopher J. Taylor filled out, under penalty of false statement, a management change for THE PONDEROSA, LLC, a limited liability company he created declaring his residence address 270 Bronson Road in the Southport section of Fairfield. Connecticut law requires municipal elected officials to reside in the respective municipalities they represent.
From state law:
Sec. 9-186. Electoral status of municipal officers and justices of the peace. Each elected municipal officer and each justice of the peace shall be an elector of the municipality in which he is elected, or in the case of a justice of the peace, nominated or appointed to office and, if for any reason he ceases to be an elector thereof, he shall thereupon cease to hold office therein and such office shall be deemed vacant.
The Bridgeport City Charter specifies that school board members “shall be electors of the city of Bridgeport.”
A potent body of state paperwork signed by Taylor calls into question the legitimacy of his Bridgeport voting address in a complaint filed by his school board nemesis Maria Pereira with the State Elections Enforcement Commission that also challenges his veracity and standing to serve. See Pereira’s complaint SEEC Taylor.
The paperwork includes Taylor, under signature, listing his address as 270 Bronson Road in Fairfield in a pro se defendant response to a bank foreclosure action filed in Superior Court. The paperwork is dated May 18, 2016. At the time Taylor was a registered voter in Bridgeport.
Pereira asserts in a statement to OIB, “Chris Taylor did not reside in Bridgeport when he ran for the Bridgeport Board of Education, did not reside in Bridgeport the night he took his oath, and does not reside in Bridgeport today. He is sitting in a Board of Education seat that belongs to Howard Gardner who lost to Chris Taylor, in a questionable recount, by 24 votes.”
Taylor, a real estate developer and property manager, asserts the law is on his side when it comes to dual residency as long as he votes in one community. He maintains Bridgeport is his primary residence.
“I don’t vote with her on the board so this is what you get from her,” says Taylor about Pereira’s complaint. “She tried to have me arrested by the Bridgeport Police Department and you saw how that went,” he added regarding Pereira’s claim in January that Taylor called her a “fat bitch” at the Aquaculture School and kicked the exit door into her.
In the last several years Taylor’s voted in Bridgeport, listing his most recent elector address at the industrial-zoned 155 Davenport Street in the East End, the location of a recycling facility and adjacent office structure controlled by one of his affiliated limited liability companies while listing Fairfield as his residential address in numerous documents filed with the state. Residential is not allowed in this zone. In city permits Taylor signed and issued to the city for construction-related matters for 155 Davenport Street he checked off “non-residential” and checked off “industrial.”
State law requires an elector be a bona fide resident of the community in which a ballot is cast.
The SEEC has civil authority over complaints that can include fines, but no force of law to remove elected officials. It can, however, refer allegations deemed criminal intent to state prosecutors. Removal of elected officials is the purview of the state legislature and state court.
Taylor’s a large, gregarious man with a lighthearted needling wit who added levity to the campaign trail of 2015 as a petitioning candidate for mayor promising a bonanza of goodies to voters, if elected mayor, such as a free laptop, a credit card with $300 limit, free cable and free bicycle for each child and guardian.
He finished second to last in a seven-candidate field with 61 votes citywide. He spoke with deprecation about a sketchy, outlaw past, “I am Chris Taylor and I am not perfect, I have done some things in my life,” a demeanor that has not escaped him in his business filings listing state prisons as addresses with remarkable names such as Wham-O, as well as capricious voting addresses and party affiliation changes.
In 2017 Taylor was elected to the school board running as an endorsed Republican after he had switched his affiliation to the GOP on the cusp of the party nod. The school board operates under state-mandated minority-party representation. In Bridgeport’s case three of six members cannot be party dominant. Taylor, in a recount by 24 votes, edged out Howard Gardner who ran on the Connecticut Working Families Party line.
Most recently, to illustrate Taylor’s proclivity to embrace a Fairfield address in state reports, he created The Ponderosa, LLC on February 18, 2019, listing 300 Wyassup Road in North Stonington, CT as the principal office address. Real estate records list it as a vacant residential lot. On March 18 he switched the principal place of business to 141-131 Davenport Street in Bridgeport’s East End.
Once again 270 Bronson Road is listed as his residence.
On August 14, 2018, a business filing with the Office of the Connecticut Secretary of the State created Bridgeport Processing & Manufacturing, LLC. Christopher J. Taylor is listed as a manager with the Fairfield residence address 270 Bronson Road. August 14, 2018 was also the day of the Republican Primary election for State Senate in Bridgeport. What did Taylor do? According to election record check off sheets he voted in person at Dunbar School, an East End precinct, in Bridgeport. His Bridgeport residence is listed as 155 Davenport Street.
In the Nov. 6 general election Taylor once again voted at Dunbar School while state business filings showed his residential address as 270 Bronson Road, Fairfield.
The business filing creates a residential conflict for Taylor. What’s his bona fide address? From Connecticut law:
Each citizen of the United States who has attained the age of eighteen years, and who is a bona fide resident of the town to which the citizen applies for admission as an elector shall, on approval by the registrars of voters or the town clerk of the town of residence of such citizen, as prescribed by law, be an elector. … For the purposes of this section … a person shall be deemed to be a bona fide resident of the town to which the citizen applies for admission as an elector if such person’s dwelling unit is located within the geographic boundaries of such town.
Bona fide residence is the domain of the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
The Commission has previously determined that an individual’s bona fide residence is the place where that individual maintains a true, fixed, and principal home to which he or she, whenever transiently located, has a genuine intent to return.
A check of 155 Davenport Street shows clear industrial warehouses as well as a detached office building that from street glance resembles a small office facility, certainly not a place with a “genuine intent to return” unless for work.
Is this all about where people brush and floss their teeth? In part, yes. Your identified state driver’s license address is another piece.
Pereira asserts in her complaint, backed by public record election documents, dizzying machinations prior to Taylor’s election to the school board:
On July 18, 2017, Taylor requested the Bridgeport Registrar’s Office change his voting address from 256 Charles Street #1 to 256 Charles Street 1 FL.
From Pereira’s complaint:
On July 20, 2017, just two days later, and six days after the Certificate of Occupancy was issued for the 155 Davenport Street Scale House, DMV notified the Bridgeport Registrar to remove Chris Taylor from the voter rolls, specifically from 256 Charles Street. The Fairfield Registrar was directed to enroll Chris Taylor at 270 Bronson Road, Southport, CT. Just hours later, then Deputy Republican Registrar, Cisco Borres, re-added Chris Taylor to the Bridgeport Voter Rolls at 155 Davenport Street. This was the very night that Chris Taylor was nominated as a Republican candidate for the Bridgeport Board of Education.
Why wait for the last minute, right?
So what’s Taylor’s real Ponderosa?
Maria
Please get a life.You need to take a look in the mirror. You are a miserable person. If you worried about yourself as you do on others. Maybe you could find some happiest All you do is spend your time trying to bring other people down. Like i’ve said to you in the past Your day will come because KARMA is a BITCH!
Ernie,
Are you defending Chris Taylor’s serving as an elected school board member in Bridgeport where he does not reside? Well, of course you are. You are two peas from the same pod.
The evidence against Chris Taylor is OVERWHELMING.
The hundreds of pages of evidence I uncovered leaves zero doubt that Chris Taylor is not a “bona fide” resident of Bridgeport.
155 Davenport Street is in a Light Industrial Zone which does not allow any residential living. I pulled the blueprints of the “scale house” where he claims to reside. The second floor has a bathroom, an office,a small storage closet and a lounge. The zoning regulations define a “dwelling” as having a full bathroom, kitchen and sleeping area. The blueprints clearly show that the second floor does not meet the definition of a “dwelling” and the fire in spector’s report clearly states there is no sleeping area. No matter what, 155 Davenport is not zoned as “residential” nor was the Certificate of Occupancy.
270 Bronson Road is owned by Chris Taylor’s mother. It has been going through a drawn out foreclosure since 2016. Chris Taylor submitted a Pro-se appearance claiming he had a right to intervene in the case because he resided at 270 Bronson Road. As evidence, he supplied a lease he filed on the Fairfield land records showing he was a resident paying $400 a month. The lease was for the period of March 2015 – 2062. His fiancee resides with his mother at 270 Bronson Road and her two children are enrolled in the Fairfield public schools.
Anyone believe that Chris Taylor’s fiancee and her two children are living with Chris Taylor’s mother at 270 Bronson Road while Chris Taylor is residing in a commercial building in the East End? I hope not
Researching Chris Taylor’s residence took me on a winding and twisted road where I uncovered numerous LLCs with business addresses identified as prisons/correctional facilities in CT, the US Post Office, with officers and members residing at prisons/correctional facilities with their inmate numbers listed on the LLCs. He has one LLC where he claims he and his officers are residing at 120 Middle Street which is the United States Post Office. The LLCs often uses aliases for one of the members who served time in four separate jails/prisons while he was a member/officer of many of the LLCs. He also uses an alias for his mother changing the spelling of her name purposefully.
I believe I uncovered bank/mortgage fraud which would likely include issues with the IRS. That was turnedover over to a separate agency that is investigating the matter.
I felt like Robert Mueller. I simply wanted to research his residency, however I was taken on a path that uncovered so much more.
Mario Testa wanted Chris Taylor because his job was to take me on. And, members of the DTC got behind a “Republican” candidate. It didn’t matter that Chris Taylor knew nothing about public education. All that mattered is that he would do Testa and Ganim’s bidding.
Chris Taylor was not even a registered Republican the night he was endorsed on July 20, 2017. Cisco Borres did not change Chris Taylor to a Republican until July 25, 2017, 5 days AFTER he was endorsed by the Republican Town Committee
Ernie, I know you don’t like Maria, but what she is doing with respect to Chris Taylor is right, moral and just. If he don’t live in the city he should not be on the BBOE.
This kind of bullshit has been going on in Bridgeport for decades and all one had to do is look at Eleanor Guedes who served on the Civil Service board for years while not living in the city and like Chris Taylor using a bogus building as an address. As an elected politican who promised that you would look out for the best interest of the people of Bridgeport you should be outraged and appalled by anyone that doesn’t live here representing Bridgeport and it doesn’t matter who or how good they are at doing whatever it is.
Ernie, you need to care more about Bridgeport than you dislike Maria. If Chris doesn’t live there then you should see that his ass is booted out of the BBOE.
Maria
I’m not surprise at you. Don i don’t hate Maria but i’m not surprise Don you taking her side. Maria has no life, all she does in life is try and find dirty on others. Maria is going to get the biggest surprise of her life one day. Don let Maria make another ass of her self like she did with me. Drug test Negative. Its going to blow up in her face WATCH!
Ernie, I challenge you to provide any evidence that contradicts this story and my posts.
There are hundreds of pages of evidence.
I am not a bad person for conducting research,, finding evidence, and providing it to the media.
Chris Taylor should be the person you criticize. However, we know you will not do that because you are close personal friends.
Right or wrong doesn’t matter to you. It never has.
Don, what you said to Ernie goes in one ear and out the other, Ernie has been played by Maria and he feels that he needs to best her down and Don you are a supporter of Maria because you agree with Maria telling the truth about Chris Taylor that has nothing to do with Ernie.
I’m not a fan of maria but I see no problem with what she I’d doing. I would hope are elected officials actually live here!!!!
There is a fairly new ordinance that requires all elected and appointed officials to provide proof of residency by January of each year.
Chris Taylor filled out his residency form. You know what he provided as proof of residency. The Municipal ID, which has no legal standing, Can someone explain why someone who is a United States Citizen who drives a vehicle and has a license would ever obtain a Municipal ID? Chris Taylor drives a vehicle. Why didn’t he simply provide his DL?
Remember, on July 19, 2017, the DMV sent notice to the Bridgeport Registrar to remove Chris Taylor from the Bridgeport voter rolls after he renewed his license. On July 20, 2017, Republican Registrar, Linda Grace, removed him around 10:00 that morning. The Fairfield Registrar was also notified to register Chris Taylor at 270 Bronson Rd. About 3 .75 hours later, Deputy Republican Registrar, Cisco Borres, moved Chris Taylor back to Bridgeport, but not back to 256 Charles St. Suddenly, Chris Taylor was registered to vote at 155 Davenport St. which is not zoned as residential and had just received a Certificate of Occupancy six days earlier. That very night, both Linda Grace and Cisco Borres attended the Bridgeport Repunlican Town Committee Convention where Chris Taylor was endorsed as a Republican candidate for the BOE although he did not become a Republican until five days later on Juky 25, 2019.
The DMV electronic notification wasn’t sent to Chris Taylor. It was only sent to the Fairfield and Bridgeport registrars. Someone in the Bridgeport Registrars office either called Republican Town Chair, Mike Garrett or Chris Taylor and notified them there was a problem.
I spoke with the Secretary of State IT Department. They conferred that a DMV notification is only triggered when a change/renewal occurs with a DL. Vehicle registrations, etc., do not trigger DMV notifications.
It is clear that Chris Taylor renewed his license with 270 Bronson Rd.,Southport,CT on July 19, 2017. Yet, Cisco Borres did everything in his power to fix Chris Taylor’s voter registration problem on July 20, 2017. There were serious red flags, however Mike Garrett, Linda Grace and Cisco Borres moved forward with Chris Taylor’s nomination that very evening where they all voted to endorse them.
Cisco Borres continued to repeatedly make changes to Chris Taylor’s voter registration between July 20, 2017 and August 22, 2017.
What’s the difference really?.So Taylor will resign his seat on the BOE,then Mario &Joe will place someone else in there that they want.And at this point,who in their right mind would want the seat,most meetings turn into arguing/shouting matches anyway.I’m counting on a mostly new board after November at this point.
Chris Taylor had no right to his seat. That seat belongs to Howard Gardner.
There are only four seats up this November, therefore the majority of the school board will not change.
The vast majority of our meetings do not entail arguments. Especially if Chris Taylor is not present.
Only six school board members attended last night’s meeting. Both Chris Taylor and Jessica Martinez were absent. Chris Taylor has an abysmal attendance record and Jessica Martinez has the second worst attendance record.
Ernie, I never said you hated Maria because the Ernie that I know don’t hate like that, not Maria or anyone else. I said your dislike for Maria shouldn’t stop you from agreeing with her when she, no especially when, she’s right. If in fact Chris doesn’t live in Bridgeport shouldn’t he be removed from the BBOE?
Here’s the kicker my Brother, if true, he were/are using an address in your district, blocks your home to perpetuate a fraud on the people of Bridgeport and this should offend your sensibilities!
Conscience asks the question, is it right?
Maria
I realize that you get joy on trying to bring people down. Why I don’t know. I have met many people in my day. Maria when you don’t like a person it’s mainly because that person may have stood up to you. Disagreed with you the only people that seem to be on your good side are those that always agrees with you. I’m going to give you the benefit of trying to bring other down you will find out What a man or woman sow it that’s what they reap. The same way you judge other God will judge You. See you at board of Education hearing tonight
Ernie, are you in agreement with the fraudulent behavior of Chris Taylor, he unseated a Ethical and honest African American. Howard Gardner was robbed of his seat. Why are you not upset. Regardless how this came to light it’s WRONG!
Chris Taylor is f’d. No doubt about it.
The SEEC used to try to wiggle around this but no doubt about it. Chris Taylor is f’d.
Just like Elinor Guedes. This only so many ways you can pinch that penny.
So to for Ernie Newton. He is just playing a game. I’ll go get an estimate once the work is done. No, I’ll get TWO estimates now that the work is done.
Then as a City Counseler he will refuse to pay what he owes and Mark Anastasi will say he is right. And Joe Ganim Will shrug 🤷♀️ his shoulders and say “well the City Attorney says so, so what can we do but go along with that.”
Every tax payer in the city of Bridgeport should be up in arms and do the exact same thing. Just like Sailors Lane, right Joe.
Have everyone complain and it’s free sidewalks for all!!!
When it came to the issue of tearing Bassick down, Howard Gardener, then not a member, pleaded with the Board not to tear the building down
Howard is a smart guy, who, by virtue of these findings should have been in that seat.
Where is Ernie Newton’s outrage that a white male, that claims he is living in the East End, is sitting in an elected board of education seat that belongs to an intelligent, articulate black male named Howard Gardner?
Donald Day, you are addressing Ernie as if right or wrong is relevant to him. Are you aware that Ernie Newton and Chris Taylor are close personal friends? Do you honestly believe that Ernie didn’t know that Chris Taylor didn’t reside in Bridgeport? I don’t buy it for one second.
Chris Taylor and many of his LLCs have been involved in extensive litigation. The attorney who has represented him in many legal matters is John Pinheiro, who is Portuguese.
He is well known in the Portuguese community to be an unethical and incompetent attorney. Attorney John Pinheiro has had his law license suspended four times for a variety of ethical, and other, violations.
Attorney John Pinheiro is also related to Joe Tiago.
I hope it was a carrot cake…
Ben, you are being naughty!
For those that don’t know, when Chris Taylor was running for the Board of Education, he was arrested at Shop Rite for shop lifing a carrot cake and shoving a Shop Rite employee who confronted him for the theft.
What adult shop lifts a carrot cake while running for elected office?
Here goes the CT Post story on Chris Taylor’s carrot cake theft. It ran in the Milford Mirror as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ctpost.com/local/amp/Milford-police-Man-ate-cake-shoved-store-12183509.php
Let them eat cake…