ETHICS, CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND THE CHARTER REVISION COMMISSION

Jeff Cohen from the Hartford Courant had a story online today at http://courant.com/cityline regarding the large amount of city dollars being spent by Corporation Counsel John Rose on outside lawyers hired by the City of Hartford attempting to defend and appealing Freedom of Information Decisions that have been decided against the City. The requests by Cohen and the Courant involve documents that will definitely embarrass the Dishonorable Mayor Eddie A. Perez and his "transparent" regime, but none the less have been ruled as public documents by the FOI Commission and their orders to Rose to release the documents. Rose's strategy appears to be to delay and stall any release through endless appeals, continuances and hearings. All the while the clock is ticking on the meter for the private attorneys and contributing to the City's deficit, all while hoping to shield Perez from embarrassment by the very documents his actions and his administration have created.

One of the more troubling revelations in the article though is that a major player in the appeals and eventually beneficiary of the billing, is an attorney at the firm of Pepe and Hazard. Attorney Richard Wareing seems to have billed the majority of the approximately $125,000 charged to Rose's office and the City of Hartford. The only person close to Wareing is Attorney Fenton Guest, who sources tell me is a personal friend of John Rose.

The reason I find Wareing's billing troublesome is that Wareing also sits as the Chairperson of the City of Hartford's Charter Revision Commission. One of the major points facing the commission, aside from the makeup of the City Council, is the issue of the Corporation Counsel's Office and its responsibility and accountability under the Charter. To me, this would seem to be a major conflict of interest on the part of any attorney receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the same Corporation Counsel's Office that you are potentially sitting in judgement of the very activities and operations of an office that would most likely affect that same attorneys future income and ability to receive work from the Corporation Counsel.

I would ask for an opinion from the City's Ethics Commission, but we all know that Perez appoints them also. Something seems broken here.

DPW DIRECTOR CLARENCE CORBIN FIRED BY PEREZ

For anyone who follows my postings, I have not been a huge fan of some of Clarence Corbin's management decisions. None the less, I think he was doing a somewhat decent job running the Public Works Department in spite of layoffs and budget cuts and, from all appearances and indications, staying clear of involvement in the corrupt activities of our dishonorable Mayor Eddie A. Perez.

All of that ended Thursday when Corbin was fired by Perez for not following the city's procurement procedures. I am fairly certain there were other reasons that will eventually come out. Although a press release from Perez's office mentioned an "acting Deputy Director of Public Works" who was also placed on adminstrative suspension, the person was not named. Sources have advised me that the "acting Deputy Director of Public Works" was John McGrane. Sources also stated that McGrane accompanied the "lobbyist" to Washington D.C. along with another DPW employee, Marilyn Cruz-Aponte. According to sources, McGrane will serve a 30 day suspension for his actions and afterwards will return as the City Engineer, rather than as a Deputy Director.

Questions still arise as to how much involvement Corbin actually had in this lobbyist plan, and from what my sources tell me , McGrane apparently was the signer on change orders and payment approvals for the "lobbyist". It will probably take some work, but I will try to get these documents from the City and post them here.

I think to many though, the big question is how does Perez keep his job, while Corbin is dismissed. Although Corbin may have violated procurement procedures, Perez has been arrested and charged with fleeceing the city in a scheme to have work done on his home at the City's expense. In the arrest warrant affidavit it alleges that Perez planned to have the cost for some of the repairs hidden in billing to the City through an account for repairs to the Church Street Garage. At least no claims have been made that Corbin attempted to benefit personally from his actions, unlike Perez who's corrupt scheme did benefit him personally in at least $40,000 dollars worth of repairs to his home.

A question for our dishonorable Mayor, Eddie how can you look anyone in the eyes and do what you do? And you might want to be careful about the Ethics violations that you want examined. To quote Councilperson Veronica Airey-Wilson, peole who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

There are more underlying reasons for Corbin's termination other than what was presented in the press release from the information I have received. One of these allegations involves a meeting about stimulus money for the Pope Commons streetscape project and Corbin potentially not "playing ball" with Perez. More on that as we work to verify the facts.