Farrell ‘86 Appointed State Commissioner of Consumer Protection Hopes to Make Public Education a Priority
By Zoe Gorman ‘09
News Staff Reporter
Mr. Jerry Farrell, Choate graduating class of 1986, has been appointed Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. Having worked as the Deputy Commissioner since 2004, in addition to serving six-terms on the Wallingford town council, Farrell is ready to take the lead.
Mr. Farrell said that Choate helped him deal with life’s challenges. “Choate was an academic challenge for me and I really enjoyed it. My father will tell you it was the best money he ever spent because I think it gave [me] a good direction in life--being challenged academically and responding to that. If you want to go places you have to respond to the challenges in front of you.”
Mr. Farrell has held an elected or appointed office since the age of 18. He served as a Justice of the Peace and as Chairman of the State Marshal Commission. Following his graduation from Choate, he attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and later graduated from Villanova University Law School in Pennsylvania. His strong religious views have played a role in his eagerness to help people in public service.
As Commissioner, Mr. Farrell plans to put a greater emphasis on public education. He feels that the state will function better if consumers know how to prevent problems for themselves. To help the public understand how to avoid situations that would require aid from the department, Mr. Farrell will distribute pamphlets, add materials to public libraries, and speak at many different areas around the state in order to answer consumer questions.
“Public education is going to be a key piece of what I try to do. We talk about protecting the consumer once they’re in trouble; I don’t want the consumer to get into trouble in the first place. The more educated the consumer can be, the more I can do because I can only help so many people. We can narrow it to the most acute problems and keep people away from the most common problems.”
Issues that Mr. Farrell hopes to avoid through his campaign for public education involve lending money to unknown parties and signing contracts before reading thoroughly. He urges the public to take a moment to examine documents before agreeing to their terms, and to be more skeptical of foreign emails to avoid being scammed.
The other primary change that Farrell plans to put into effect as Commissioner is a more efficient use of technology. He wishes to use the Internet to take and respond to consumer complaints and to grant or revoke licenses in a more expeditious manner. The department’s current budget for “snail” mail is over $200,000 and the time that it takes to notify consumers through the post can be costly as well.
“I’d like to see the exchange of information be electronic so that there isn’t time lost. I can find ways of doing things electronically; I can decrease the cost to the tax payer and hopefully slash a lot of that postal budget and at the same time provide more efficient service,” commented Farrell.
Before his career in state politics, Mr. Farrell practiced for eleven and a half years as a general attorney in a family practice. He found that because consumer protection covers such a vast span, knowing general law enabled him to help different people.
“We had a general practice so we had to know a lot of things and be able to respond to a lot of situations, which is more unique these days. A general practitioner in the legal setting is great for doing that kind of thing because we’re used to answering any question under the sun and recognizing what you can answer and what you can help with and what’s outside of our realm.”
A lot of Mr. Farrell’s work during his time with the law practice involved senior citizens and the elderly. He felt that there was great satisfaction in helping people solve problems and make decisions at that age. “It was good training to go into consumer protection because it makes you somewhat sensitive to dealing with people. You have to be a sympathetic ear.”
The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection protects both buyers and the market place from scams. It also is the Connecticut agency that licenses most occupational professions. In order to help with license issues, the agency must be familiar with 184 different professions.
“You try to master these several hundred subject areas that we deal with so that you can deal with people’s questions,” explained Mr. Farrell. “What we try to do is make sure that the people who go into those occupations and professions have the requisite competence.”
Public service workers ensure that the workers they license will be safe and effective. When consumers get into problems with worker incompetence, often with electrical-related issues, the fact that the agency holds the license and can potentially revoke it can be helpful.
The agency also regulates all aspects of pharmaceutical work. It ensures that pharmacists are knowledgeable and will not distribute the wrong medications. The agency also warrants doctors to prescribe medication and disciplines those who abuse drugs such as morphine and steroids.
The liquor control division looks carefully at alcohol sales of all kinds and tries to isolate and discipline areas that sell to minors. The agency can revoke licenses of places that sell to underage drinkers or to inebriated persons. It expects bars to be responsible for how much alcohol they serve to different people. It also looks at cleanliness of grocery stores and ice cream factories.
“We do so many things beyond just buyer bewares. We try to also regulate aspects of public health and public safety,” explained Farrell.
Mr. Farrell continues to reside in Wallingford where he and his wife Natelie are raising their baby daughter Emelia. He hopes to send her to Choate some day.
As a day student at Choate, Mr. Farrell was most enthusiastic about history. He took American Political Institutions with Mr. Goodyear and benefited from the public speaking aspect of the course. His favourite courses were British History and Italian. Taught one term of the language by Mr. Rinaldi, Mr. Farrell is now fluent. He was close with Mr. Benjamin Sylvester, his history teacher and Mr. Sylvester’s wife Lee, who was the school archivist for many years. He felt that his English teachers contributed to his love of reading and literature and let him understand the beauty in the written and the spoken.
Farrell ‘86 appointed Commissioner of Consumer Protection by MJ Rell
