Alleged Fraud and Policy Violations, Missing Records, and the Small-Town Superintendent and Board Member Behind It All

GRANBY, CT — A single unanswered question about a school superintendent's raise lacking documented board authorization has unraveled into one of the most significant governance crises in the Town of Granby's recent history — touching contracts signed without recorded board approval, a licensed attorney's sudden resignation, a conflicted acting chair, and a community now racing to hold its elected officials accountable before a critical board meeting on May 6.

The Postcard That Started It All

In late March 2026, postcards bearing the official Granby town seal began appearing at a local "No Kings" political rally. The cards — pre-printed with "I Support the Budget / I Support Our Town / I Support Our Schools" — were directed to Michael Guarco, Chairman of the Granby Board of Finance, asking him not to cut school funding.

One of those postcards, signed by a child identified as the son of then-Board of Education Chair Monica L. Logan, was sent directly to Guarco at Town Hall.

Board of Selectmen member Kim Becker was captured on video at the rally directing attendees to fill out the postcards and promising they would be delivered to Guarco.

The postcards bore the official Granby town seal on both sides — raising immediate questions about the use of a municipal symbol on what was effectively political advocacy material.

When the postcard was photographed and circulated online, Logan cited it as a political attack on her family.

Questions remain about what role, if any, Logan played in facilitating a campaign that used her child to lobby the Finance Chair.

Town Manager Michael Walsh — who previously served as East Hartford's mayor and sits on the same Capital Program Priorities Advisory Committee as Logan and Guarco — publicly declared that no laws were broken. Legal observers noted that the determination of whether the town seal was improperly used falls under the town clerk's authority, not the town manager's, raising immediate questions about the independence of that declaration.

Multiple state statutes are potentially implicated by the postcard campaign, including CGS 7-101 governing the custody and use of municipal seals, CGS 9-369b prohibiting the expenditure of public funds in connection with a referendum, and CGS 9-605 requiring the registration of referendum committees that raise or spend funds for political advocacy.

Enforcement authority over these statutes rests with the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission — not the town manager.

The Resignation That Raised More Questions Than It Answered

On April 22, 2026, a concerned Granby resident sent a written inquiry to Logan with a straightforward question: could she confirm that Superintendent Cheri P. Burke's most recent contract addendum — signed by Logan on June 30, 2025 — had been properly authorized by a formal vote of the full Board of Education?

Logan never responded.

Two days later, on April 24, Logan submitted her resignation as Board of Education Chair, effective immediately. Her resignation letter spoke of harassment, political attacks, and her child being used as a political tool. It said nothing about the contract authorization question sitting unanswered in her inbox.

The timing was not lost on the community members who had been researching the issue. Multiple residents had independently reviewed every publicly available Board of Education meeting minute from 2025. None could find a recorded vote authorizing the addendum Logan had signed.

The Contract: What the Documents Show

The addendum in question was signed by Logan and Burke on June 30, 2025. It increased Burke's base salary from $220,000 to $230,000 — a $10,000 raise — and added approximately $19,200 in new deferred compensation contributions and a monthly wellness stipend, bringing her total annual compensation to approximately $239,200.

The addendum also added substantial new long-term benefits including post-retirement health insurance coverage and a sick leave payout provision whose total long-term value to taxpayers could exceed $500,000.

But buried in the document's own opening language is something remarkable. The addendum explicitly cites Section 3, Term, Letter A of the underlying contract, which states:

By including this language in the document she signed, Logan had the authorization requirement — a formal superintendent request and a formal board vote — directly in front of her. She signed the document without documented board authorization having been obtained, with the date field in the addendum's opening line left blank.

The document reads simply "made on (date)" — a basic deficiency in a legal contract committing nearly a quarter million dollars in public funds annually.

There is a clear precedent that makes this more difficult to explain. When another previous Granby Superintendent, Dr. Alan Addley, received a contract modification, it went through a proper public board vote recorded in the meeting minutes.

The standard was known. It was not followed for Burke.

Adding further weight to this point, according to her publicly available professional biography and reporting by the Hartford Courant, Burke served as Assistant Superintendent of the Glastonbury, Connecticut school district prior to her appointment in Granby.

As a seasoned school administrator with experience in Connecticut public school governance, Burke would have been well familiar with the standard procedures required to authorize contract modifications — making her acceptance of an addendum lacking documented board authorization all the more difficult to explain as an innocent misunderstanding.

Logan Is a Licensed Attorney

What elevates this from a governance oversight to a more serious matter is a fact that emerged during community research: Monica Logan is a licensed Connecticut attorney, active since 2004, with no prior disciplinary history. She also holds a voluntarily inactive bar license in Illinois dating to 2001.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. A layperson who signs a contract without fully understanding the authorization requirements might have a credible good faith defense.

A licensed attorney with over two decades of legal experience — who signed a document containing the very language describing the authorization requirement she appears to have bypassed — faces a significantly more difficult time establishing that defense.

As a licensed attorney Logan was bound by the Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct, including Rule 8.4, which addresses conduct and integrity standards for attorneys acting in official capacities.

The Vice Chair Who Became Acting Chair

Following Logan's resignation, Board Vice Chair Heather Lombardo assumed the role of Acting Chair. On April 25, concerned residents forwarded their inquiry — and the documentation supporting it — to Lombardo, First Selectman Mark Fiorentino, and Board of Finance Chair Michael Guarco.

Lombardo did not respond to the inquiry.

Two days later, on April 27, at a public town budget referendum meeting, Lombardo made a statement that stunned community members following the situation. Standing before residents, she stated words to the effect that: "Our legal team is looking into past practices." The statement was made on the public record and is viewable here beginning at approximately the 42-minute mark:

 

The statement confirmed that the board's legal counsel had already been engaged to review the governance questions.

What Lombardo did not disclose to the public at that meeting was that she herself had served as Vice Chair of the Board throughout 2025 — the entire period whose practices are now under legal review.

She attended the meetings. She approved the minutes. Those minutes do not contain a record of the authorization vote that the contract's own language suggests should have preceded Logan's signature on Burke's addendum.

The conflict of interest is stark. Lombardo is now Acting Chair overseeing a legal review whose findings will determine whether her own conduct as Vice Chair constitutes a governance failure. Community members argue she cannot be both a subject of the inquiry and the person directing it.

Community members are formally demanding that any review be conducted by truly independent outside legal counsel with no prior relationship to the board — not the board's own legal team reporting to a conflicted acting chair.

The FOIA Request and the Race Against Time

On April 28, a formal Freedom of Information Act request was filed with the Granby Board of Education seeking all meeting minutes, contract documents, communications, and financial records related to the authorization of Burke's contract. Responses are legally due May 4 — two days before the May 6 board meeting.

That timing is significant because community members have reason to believe that at the May 6 meeting, Lombardo will seek to be formally installed as Board Chair and simultaneously attempt to push through a retroactive ratification of Burke's contract addendum.

If successful, such a vote would be an attempt to extinguish accountability for the governance failure before the full documentary record lands in the public domain.

Legal observers note that retroactive ratification, even if passed, would not undo the financial harm already caused — Burke has already received months of compensation above her previously authorized $220,000 salary without a recorded board vote authorizing the increase.

It would not address Lombardo's conflict of interest. And it would itself constitute an admission that the original addendum lacked proper authorization, strengthening rather than resolving the legal case.

The Bigger Picture

What the documentary evidence reveals is not a simple administrative error. It is a pattern — spanning two consecutive contract cycles, two separate contract signings by Logan, and a governance process that appears to have been conducted informally and without the public accountability that Connecticut law and basic institutional integrity require.

Burke's original 2023 contract was signed by then-Chair Sarah Thrall and set her salary at $211,000. When Logan replaced that contract with a new three-year agreement in July 2024 — two full years before the original was set to expire, a move permitted under the contract's optional early renewal provision but whose authorization has not been documented in the public record — Burke's salary was increased to $220,000.

The question of whether that 2024 contract was also properly authorized by a board vote is now part of the FOIA request. Burke signed the 2024 contract on June 26. Logan signed it five days later on July 1.

Whether any board meeting occurred between those dates to authorize Logan's signature is not apparent in the public record.

From $211,000 in 2023 to a potential $254,750 in 2025-2026, plus long-term benefit obligations potentially exceeding $500,000, the total financial exposure to Granby taxpayers from these contracts — if the documented authorization gaps are as significant as the public record suggests — is substantial.

Here's a copy of the contract.

What the Community Is Doing

Concerned residents are not waiting for officials to act. A comprehensive audit of all three superintendent contracts has been completed and documented. A 16-flag analysis identifies specific governance concerns in each document.

The Questions That Demand Answers at May 6

Community members plan to attend the May 6 Board of Education meeting in force. They intend to ask — on the public record — the questions that have gone unanswered for weeks:

Was there a formal board vote authorizing the June 30, 2025 superintendent contract addendum? If yes — when did it occur, who made the motion, who seconded it, and what was the vote count?

Did Lombardo vote to approve the 2025 meeting minutes that failed to record any such authorization vote?

How much has Burke been paid above her previously authorized salary of $220,000 since the addendum lacking documented board authorization took effect?

Will Lombardo recuse herself from any vote on the superintendent's contract given her personal conflict of interest as Vice Chair during the period under review?  It's believed by many in the town that because the Democrats have a majority, they'll attempt to retroactively approve this to protect Monica, Cheri and their party - all at the expense of taxpayers.  Is that what their plan is for the meeting?

Why is retroactive ratification being considered before the FOIA responses due May 4 have been reviewed by the public?

Will the board commit to independent outside legal counsel — with no prior relationship to any board member — conducting the governance review?
 

A Community at a Crossroads

Logan's resignation letter made an observation that rings with irony given what has since emerged. She wrote that "bullying is a community problem" and warned that bad behavior "deters good people from running for office." She called on the community to look at where harmful behavior is coming from.

The community of Granby is doing exactly that. It is looking carefully at the documentary record — the contracts, the minutes, the missing votes, the blank date field, the unanswered inquiries, the carefully timed resignation, and the public statement from a conflicted acting chair about a legal review already underway.

It is asking the questions that the documentary record demands be asked.

The answers will come, one way or another. Either at the May 6 meeting, or through the FOIA responses due on May 4, or through the regulatory and legal processes now being set in motion.

The residents of Granby — parents, taxpayers, and citizens who have a right to transparent, accountable governance of their public schools — will not stop asking until they get them.

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