Baba Boo-Yes [Video]

With its references to feces, mockery and name-calling, Monday night’s gathering of Greenwich’s largest governing body may have been mistaken for a crudely entertaining radio program.

Yet by the time the Representative Town Meeting’s regular monthly meeting had ended, delegates had cast a vote to add to their civic-minded ranks a resident who doubles in his professional life as producer of satellite radio’s “The Howard Stern Show.”

Gary Dell’Abate — according to many who vouched for his character at the meeting, a dedicated father and husband, nurturing youth sports coach and quietly generous philanthropist who has lived in Greenwich for nearly 17 years — will become the newest member of the town Board of Parks and Recreation. When Dell’Abate’s nomination to the advisory panel began , RTMers grew deeply divided between those supporting the longtime resident on his merits, and those fearing that his association with the Stern program could be destructive.

On Dell’Abate’s 50th birthday, the RTM voted 119-64 in his favor. Moments after the vote, Dell’Abate told reporters he felt relieved (see video).

“I’m glad to be done with it,” the Old Greenwich resident said. “I’m happy to move on.”

He’d be leaving behind a town drama that’s taken some bizarre turns in recent weeks — and, if comments made against Dell’Abate’s bid for the parks board prior to the vote are any indication, strong feelings may linger.

“Howard Stern is a misogynist bully who uses his broadcast as a bully pulpit to personally disparage and attack those with whom he disagrees,” Bob Brady, secretary of the District 5/Riverside RTM delegation told more than 150 people assembled in the CMS auditorium. “If Mr. Dell’Abate is advising Mr. Stern to carry out these attacks, he’s an effective advisor, demonstrating values that I do not share and I hope that the RTM does not share.”

The process for becoming a member of the parks board is arduous. Candidates are nominated by selectmen, then interviewed and voted up or down by standing committees of the RTM, before the full RTM votes whether to appoint. Some of those who spoke out against Dell’Abate’s appointment said the Stern producer demonstrated a lack of good judgment when he made available to the radio show recordings from the public proceedings he himself was undergoing as part of the appointment process, describing the treatment of Greenwich as mocking. Others said they felt RTM members would be intimidated to go against Dell’Abate should he earn a seat on the parks board, that he lacked the parks-focused background that’s needed for balance on the board, or that the only kind of attention his appointment to the advisory panel could garner would be negative.

Supporters — including First Selectman Peter Tesei, Selectman Drew Marzullo and state Rep. Fred Camillo (R-151) — rallied to Dell’Abate’s defense, citing personal knowledge of their friend and experiences with him as a coach, mentor and donor.

Greenwich High School student Nick Bancroft, formerly a player in the Greenwich Youth Football League’s North Mianus Bulldogs, who now plays for GHS and coaches GYFL with Dell’Abate, described his former coach as “a role model for me and the other boys he works with.”

“He is fair, dedicated and committed to giving back to the community,” Bancroft said. “He is one of the people who inspired me to go back and volunteer as a junior coach for the Bulldogs. In addition to coaching youth sports, Mr. Dell’Abate has worked with my mom, helping with Bulldog fundraisers and organizing bands for the North Mianus School Pow-Wow.”

Other supporters argued against claims that Stern’s show had somehow abused their public meetings by airing the goings-on, saying the RTM is a transparent elected body and not a private club.

Ross Moore, a neighbor of the Dell’Abates who has lived in town for nine years, objected to associating his friend with the term "misogynist."

“As the very protective father of two beautiful girls, I can assure you that the word ‘misogynist’ [which] was thrown out here tonight, it’s an ugly word,” Moore said. “And I respect the gentleman [who said it] for his time, but it is an ugly word to throw around in a room like this, in a serious situation like this … He [Dell’Abate] has exemplary character.”

Not everyone does.

Dell’Abate himself condemned a lewd act that several speakers referred to in comments during the meeting — the placement in the home mailbox of one RTM delegate who had been nonsupportive of Dell’Abate of a bag of feces, including a note that made it clear the deliverer was, at least in his or her mind, pro-Stern.

In a strange, subsequent twist, that RTM member — District 6/Old Greenwich delegate Coline Jenkins — is said to have brought the same bag with her to a future meeting of the RTM Appointments Committee, held at a Town Hall cafeteria.

Tom Conelias, chairman of District 3/Chickahominy, also a member of the Appointments Committeee, began to describe that scene: “I sat next to the member who brought the feces into the second meeting of the Appointments Committee and dropped it in on the cafeteria table. If that’s not to create a circus atmostphere —"

RTM Moderator Tom Byrne quickly cut off Conelias: “Mr. Conelias, just please address the nominee.”

Conelias finished, “I support Mr. Dell’Abate and I hope that we, as an RTM, act deliberately and as grownups in this process,” drawing applause from the crowd.

For his part, Dell’Abate said he regretted that many who have spoken about him in a negative way since the nomination process started, really do not know him.

“Many of you received a call today from someone urging you not to vote for me. She spoke about me as if she knows me, but she doesn’t know me. She’s never met me,” he said. “In fact none of my detractors have even taken the time to talk to the people who actually do know me to see who I really am.”

Dell’Abate is set to serve a 4-year term, through March 31, 2015.