Sign Pro, Inc., v. Town of Southington

PHILIP THIBODEAU PHOTOS

Some news stories come and go. Others linger so long that it can be hard to recall why they started or what is at stake, much less predict how they will end.

In Southington, one of the most significant long-running stories centers on a lawsuit first filed in April 2023, by Sign Pro, Inc., and its owner and founder Peter Rappoccio, against the Town of Southington and several town officials.

The suit centers on the way Sign Pro was treated by the town when it came to issuing permits for the signs Sign Pro builds and installs, and for a new building Sign Pro added to its facility in 2021.

Sign Pro maintains that, in retaliation for drawing attention to signs that other companies installed without the proper permits, the defendants went to unusual lengths to delay, and some cases deny, Sign Pro’s permit requests.

The reason the suit is being heard in federal court is that Sign Pro claims that its rights spelled out under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution have been violated. The Equal Protection clause says that “No state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It basically means that all persons who are in the same situation relative to the state should be treated alike.

The defendants have in turn countered that the town’s treatment of the company involved nothing more than the normal, and perfectly legal, back-and-forth that characterizes most dealings between municipalities and people in the communities they serve.

They have also buttressed their case with other arguments, such as that Sign Pro failed to show damages, or prove that the treatment it received from the town was in any significant way different from that received by other companies.

The original defendants in the case were the Town of Southington and its former Building Official, Jeffrey Pooler. In October 2023, Sign Pro filed an amended complaint that added former Town Manager Town Sciota and former Town Council Chair Victoria Triano. Finally, in June 2025, a third complaint added former Town Attorney and current Town Manager Alex Ricciardone to the list of defendants, along with current Town Council Chair Paul Chaplinsky.

Ultimately, it is up to the legal system to resolve the case. It could happen that the District Court judge, Stefan R. Underhill, grants the defendants’ request for summary judgment, saying, in effect, that there was no wrongdoing, which would bring the case to an end. Alternatively, the judge could turn down the request for summary judgment. In that case the two parties might seek to negotiate some kind of settlement, or the case could be sent to a jury for trial.

The Southington Outsider is a non-profit news organization whose official mission is public education. It is not our business to duplicate the work of the court and assign blame, if any blame is to be assigned.

We do however have the ability, and a certain obligation, to collect items that are on the public record and present them in as clear and comprehensible a manner as possible – and that we will do. We also hope to shed light on some basic questions, such as what Sign Pro’s business model is, how the process for getting a sign permit works, and so on. Our working assumption is that while many of our readers may have a basic understanding of these things, many more do not and would like to be better informed.

In the weeks to come, we will be publishing a series of articles relating to the case. The first, which comes out today, is by our reporter Anthony Angelillo. It uses a recent visit to Sign Pro by State Rep. Christopher Poulos as an opportunity to outline the sorts of jobs Rappoccio’s business performs, and provide context for the case.

There is an imbalance in the sources for our reporting. While Rappoccio is willing to talk on the record about the case, and has done so, the defendants, heeding the advice of their counsel, have taken care not to speak in public about the matter.

For that reason, we will base our future reporting on the case's particulars on two sets of public documents. Although rather lengthy, they may be the best place to start for anyone who wishes to get a detailed understanding of the legal dispute. In future articles we will go over in detail the incidents at the heart of the disagreement.

The first set of documents is the Motion for Summary Judgment submitted by the defendants to the judge, along with a Statement of Undisputed Facts, and a Memorandum on the relevant case law. These were filed on March 30, 2026.

The second set consists of Sign Pro's reply to the Motion, which takes the form of another Memorandum on the relevant law. This was filed on June 18 of this year.