One television reporter told me that "Hartford was the gift that keeps on giving" when it comes to material for blog posts and news stories. Boy were they right.
Today when I got the call telling me about an someone who is apparently a vendor for the City of Hartford. They explained that the vendor, who apparently is hired by Development Services to clean up illegal dumping sites in the City, was himself arrested by the Hartford Police for illegal dumping behind the Comcast Theater.
The Police reports are below, but other tan the police reports, the City is being very tight lipped about the incident. I can understand why, how many embaraasing situations can you be expected to have to address at one time> PCards, retiree issues, phony budget numbers, New Year's Eve soiree's and now the illegal dumping by the same vendor apparently paid to clean the messes up.
And now another twist, the employee in Development Services who apparently is tasked with working withe the illegal dumping "cleaner upper" vendor, has now sent an e-mail to Deputy Chief Hightower stating that, from what sources are telling me, she gave him permission for the illegal dumping.
I know that there may be enough illegal activity in the halls of Hartford City Hall, but now employees are giving permission notes for corrupt behavior? I think it might be more of a last ditch effort to save someones contract, but time will tell.
Sources at DPW are telling me that they are in the process of preparing a bill for the cleanup that they will try to collect from the illegal dumper. Maybe they should take it as a payroll deduction from the employeee that thought she had the power to authorize illegal activity.
The vendor, according to sources, is also a vendor for Manafort Construction on the MDC Clean Water's Project. It is unclear if any of the materials dumped illegally were from that project. On the day that the vendor was confronted by Police on Holcomb Street, where he was working for Manafort, Joseph Gallo, an Inspector from DEEP, shut the work down because the illegal dumper was also working illegally at the time because no "Call Before You Dig" notifications were never made and no permit issued for the work being performed.
Where are our Inspectors? is anyone in the City paying attention?
Through a request to the Mayor's Office for comment on the incident, the following statement was e-mailed to me:
Maribel,
As I mentioned
to the police when asked yesterday, Mark Swiatowiec is the owner of New England
Construction. New England Construction is an on-call City contractor that
performs property maintenance services for the City. Mark has been cited for
allegedly dumping construction debris on a City-owned lot on New Road. I
informed the officer that I find it quite unlikely that Mark would dump on such
a high profile City lot, especially when he has dumpsters at his disposal around
town.
Please let me
know if you need any additional information.
Truly,
Julianne
Julianne
Avallone
Senior Project
Manager
Housing and
Property Management Division
Department of
Development Services
City of
Hartford
T:
860-757-9029
The incident is outlined in the attached Police reports. Apparently the police were led to the vendor through a piece of unopened mail found in with the debris that had been dumped. When confronted, the suspected illegal dumper told the investigators the mail must have blown out of his window as he drove by cComcast. Sure sounds legit to me.
I hope the City has begun the process of removing the illegal dumper from any City purchasing lists and also put a hold on any payments owed to him to pay for the DPW cleanups. I will atempt to obtain the e-mail from Ms. Avallone to Chief Hightower regarding this incident through FOI, it could prove interesting from what I am told.
In the mean time, maybe Mr. Swiatowiec should keep his windows up when he drives by Comcast to avoid future incidents.
4 comments:
When is the last time the city put out a bid for its so-called on-call contractor? this guy has been around forever. maybe they just keep extending his contract without going out to competetive bid. that's a monopoly, right?
Hey guess what? This is the GC who did the stonework and landscaping at Pedro's House on Prospect. His sub did the fence. Surprise, surprise!
What is also odd is at the 4/9/12 city council meeting Segarra pushed through a lucrative legal settlement with this contractor (Item#5), while at the same time giving them additional contracts for the demolition at Capitol West. You usually can't sue the City and get new contracts at the same time.
http://www.hartford.gov/images/TownClerk/Agenda-4-9-12.htm
Ms abalone might be related to attorney Anthony abalone,bill and Marc dibella,s lobbying partner. I would not be surprised if Marc and bill got her the nice city job
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