City Council Expected To Approve McCarthy’s Severance Agreement Under ‘Consent Calendar’ Cover

City Council 2015
The full City Council

It’s one simple sentence on the City Council agenda for Monday night “Miscellaneous Matters Committee Report re: Settlement of Legal Claim with Thomas C. McCarthy” but getting there was no simple resolution. The city’s legislative body is expected to provide final approval to an employment severance package for its leader who also served as deputy director of Labor Relations. The approval may come with no official details announced publicly.

The item is listed on the so-called parliamentary “consent calendar” that includes matters grouped together with no discussion providing one vote to approve all. For the most part consent calendar items are deemed routine that do not require discussion to move business along quickly. But the consent calendar can be a convenient cover for council members to avoid the public unpleasantness of issues such as approving a pay package for a peer who’s also pocketed a six-figure salary.

Last Monday, under the cover of litigation, the Miscellaneous Matters Committee entered into executive session outside of public view to hear details of a negotiated severance package hammered out chiefly by Associate City Attorney Mark Anastasi and the labor lawyer for McCarthy, former Mayor Tom Bucci. Both parties have publicly ducked releasing the official terms of the agreement but sources say it’s a package of roughly $35,000 and 18 months of health benefits for McCarthy to go away peacefully and avoid messy litigation.

The genesis of this is Mayor Joe Ganim living up to a campaign pledge to eliminate conflicts of interests on the City Council such as city employee councilors approving their own wages and benefits. McCarthy has been on the public payroll and a City Council member for about 15 years. McCarthy was often accused of abdicating checks and balances in government with then-Mayor Bill Finch because he worked for the executive branch of government while serving as head of the legislative body. Negative, countered McCarthy, he pushed back but just did not do it publicly.

Democratic Town Chair Mario Testa, close to Ganim and McCarthy while also Bucci’s cousin, even stepped in to help broker the exit deal. McCarthy and Bucci initially threw out a large severance number, Ganim who had to sign off on the arrangement countered low. Ganim ultimately approved the agreement that was then ratified by the Miscellaneous Matters Committee, now before the full council Monday night. City Attorney R. Christopher Meyer says it requires council approval because more than $20,000 is involved.

Critics of the agreement argue McCarthy should be viewed as a discretionary employee of the mayor and let go without a financial reward. Supporters maintain this is a prudent resolution that would cost taxpayers more dough in a protracted legal battle in addition to the hard feelings it could create between the mayor and McCarthy as president of the council. The agreement also frees up McCarthy to provide due diligence because his paycheck is no longer coming from the executive branch.

McCarthy has a law degree and presumably will look for employment in the legal/labor field. He has not discussed publicly his employment future.

See full council agenda here.

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43 comments

    1. City Council members, Superior court was ready to hand the Remington property over to the City of Bridgeport after a 10-year battle for back taxes of $10 million.
      DiNardo/RemGrit then filed a last-minute move for bankruptcy in Federal court that stopped the final foreclosure proceedings in Superior court.
      At this point DiNardo/RemGrit has lost the case in Superior Court!
      DiNardo now tells the Federal Court he has a deal with the City of Bridgeport. Which he doesn’t! But at this point if the City Council gives DiNardo this deal it would be a gift from the taxpayers of Bridgeport, plus the millions of dollars we lost in back taxes and legal fees.
      The Kooris/DiNardo deal is bad for the city, so if the City Council takes this deal, then why should anyone in Bridgeport pay their taxes???

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      1. City Council, wake up!
        We have a $20 Million deficit hanging over our heads, can this City afford to forgive Millionaire Sal DiNardo/Remgrit a $10 Million Tax Break?!
        He only wants to pay $315K plus a land deal.

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        1. Once it goes into Bankruptcy Court and if the bankruptcy court accepts the bankruptcy dollars presented as part of the bankruptcy, it becomes A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BALL GAME. You would need bankruptcy court to reject DiNardo’s claim.

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  1. In the photo above, Tom McCarthy seems to stand almost “head and shoulders” above fellow Council members. Also his smile seems larger than any of his legislative contemporaries and perhaps it is because he was paid more in 2015 than the rest of them used from their Stipend Allowances, and because of the settlement will also be ahead of most of them in 2016, yet he has not shared his employment efforts with the Council in public fashion. It is just one of the conflicts that Tom has worn too many hats in recent years to deal with. Perhaps a taxpayer representative hat can fit into his future. Time will tell.

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  2. The combination of special treatment for a politically connected employee; a closed-door committee discussion; and a procedure that protects City Council members from individually voting on the agreement proves one thing. NOTHING has changed at City Hall. New faces, same old game.

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  3. Any of the city council members can request the item be removed from the consent calendar and discussed and voted on separately.

    Let’s see if that happens.

    If not, Phil Smith is correct. It’s the Bridgeport city council. Same circus, different clowns.

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  4. Executive sessions are reserved for personnel matters and pending litigation.

    Was it really a personnel matter? Was it a matter of performance or violations of rules?

    Was there pending litigation? What was the court docket number?

    Once upon a time, a member of the media would be knocking on the meeting room door to verify the reason for executive session and would follow up to verify it was a personnel matter or the case had been docketed. Lennie, I’m sure you remember those days.

    Again, let’s see if everything is done with a consent calendar so the council members have time to grab dinner using their council stipend debit card McCarthy arranged for them.

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    1. On the night of the Miscellaneous Matters Committee meeting that went into executive session to address the McCarthy exit package, co-chair AmyMarie Vizzo-Paniccia escorted me a sizable distance from the Democratic Caucus Room out of concern I had my ear to the door of the meeting room. Which was the case. Old habits die hard.

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  5. You people really have no clue. You keep expecting the same assholes you elect to do a better job. Dumb is Dumb. This council to my memory has never voted down a contract. This council passed the police contract allowing them to average out their best three years to equal the pension.
    Not One, that’s right, Not One council person voted down this contract. This is the same council that spent $30K on such things as cable service, food shopping 57 times at Stop & Shop. Yet we keep electing them. Ask the council how much Marella and Vizzo spent giving each other charity money. You know what, you dumb asses will elect them again and again.

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  6. *** It’s on autopilot like most local government agendas that call for spending taxpayer money. However this issue is better to pay now than maybe more later, no? ***

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  7. Let me echo Tom White’s comment. All it takes is one single council member to raise his hand when the agenda is read and ask that this item be removed from the consent calendar. No questions asked. It is a matter of personal privilege.
    I did it more than 100 times. Just so I could speak to an issue even if no one else wanted to.
    I have already sent emails to the council members from the 132nd district asking them to reject this settlement. I guess now I will have to ask them to remove it from the consent calendar.

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  8. What a gutless, faceless council. Every item on the agenda is on the consent calendar. That means there was not a single vote in committee either against or an abstention for an item. This includes the gift to Sal DiNardo.
    I wonder if any of the council members have ever taken a political donation from Sal. Surely McCarthy has.

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  9. Bubba, remember the Alvin Penn situation years ago. The Council for some reason or another felt his position was no longer necessary. Alvin was a State Senator at the time. I was the only member of the 20 who voted against the move because I knew there was a better way to handle it. That’s not important now, my point is if the Mayor and/or conscience-minded council members thought it through, when the budget is submitted in April, reassess the position, save the taxpayers money, and cut it out, no funding for that position. Tom is not indispensable, the new Labor Relations Director appears to have a strong background, appropriate credentials, and existing, experienced staff. If after six months to a year it becomes necessary for assistance, hire a part-time employee.

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    1. Lisa, that is the heart of problem. Most City Council members are chosen not because of their ability but because they will do what they are told. When you add the “what’s in it for me” mentality of many in city government you have a formula for disaster.

      In the final analysis we don’t have a rubber stamp City Council because the members aren’t smart enough or because three members are city employees. We have a rubber stamp Council because its members were picked to be rubber stamps and the voters–in primaries and the general election–went along.

      Until that changes and we get independent thinking members focused on what is best for Bridgeport, real change will be difficult if not impossible.

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      1. Phil, I can’t disagree with you. But in this instance, didn’t anyone think out of the box? The solution was waiting for someone to realize it. A few more months with McCarthy on the job would have saved a lot of time and effort. If the job he held was deemed unnecessary, take it out of the budget. As far as cutting jobs in the budget, that should be the first place anyone looks, either those assigned to present a budget, or anyone with past experience who know what positions are unnecessary, overpaid, and given to non-experienced individuals.

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          1. Of course they’re not. He can’t stay now that a public commitment was made to end duplicity, and the public was waiting to make sure it happened. What I still can’t understand is why such a big deal was made to remove him, and why we’re paying for his golden parachute.

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    2. Lisa, thank you for bringing this subject up, that move was not about funding, it was about power and putting Senator Alvin Penn in his place but what it did was to do away with the Office of Affirmative Action and by doing so there is no one monitoring the City’s hiring practices, no one. The City’s last two entry level firefighter hiring list had no women, zero and there is no City official to say or do anything about that or about the very low number of blacks and Hispanics being hired for the last eight years. The largest city in the state has no Affirmative Action Office and it has no one checking the numbers.

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      1. Ron, of the 20 years I served on the council, that vote haunts me most. Colleagues I considered like-minded friends went along with that egregious action against my friend the Senator and what his position represented. You’re so right, for whatever their reasoning was, they sacrificed the most important department this City needed and what’s worse, it was never corrected. Fabrizi and Finch had the opportunity to do that. All these years later I can’t get beyond that vote. 19 to 1. The proudest vote I ever cast. (For those who don’t remember, I was the lone vote against.) It happened at a time when Joe was bleeding from his own situation, and they knew he could do nothing to prevent it. Maybe now he will!!!

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    3. Lisa, I never understood how a council in an inner city could do away with the Affirmative Action Office and how that would look to other municipalities. Glad to hear you voted against it.

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      1. Hector, Fabrizi had every Hispanic and black city council member voting against their own people and not one district leader said anything and they had no backup plan to replace the duties and responsibility that was being carried out by the Affirmative Action Office. The Bridgeport Police and Fire department have a long history of discrimination that had to be resolved by the federal court for hiring and that problem is still here but there is NO City office to monitor the problem.

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  10. Wait Lennie, AmyMarie Vizzo-Paniccia escorted you away from the caucus room? That’s the most she’s done on the council in years. I’m not even sure I’ve ever heard her utter a word in all these years.

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    1. Lisa, during the campaign candidate Ganim proclaimed he would solve the problem of city employees serving on the Council by simply ignoring the state law.

      I suspect when it came time to put that strategy into action his legal advisers looked at the facts and law and concluded that wasn’t a viable legal strategy. Hence the buyout.

      As I have said before, I think the buyout is a bad idea that will come back to haunt the administration now and in the future. I suspect Tom McCarthy may also find taking the money is politically toxic. But that remains to be seen.

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    1. Dave, unless you know, there are usually only six speakers who are allowed. Usually, on a weekly basis, two of those slots are taken. If you go to the meeting, you may find all six slots may already have been taken before you enter the Common council chambers. Literally, you have to preregister.

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    1. If all slots are taken Dave, specifically ask for consideration to speak, remind the council members you are a taxpayer and feel five minutes won’t make a difference one way or another. It’s not that they have such a time-consuming agenda that will require much of their time. If the council president refuses you, ask for a vote of the council. At least you’ll see who has the conscience and courage to support your request. I can’t see McCarthy defending the rules, he had no problem breaking them for years.

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  11. I hope Mr. Walker goes to the CC meeting and will be given a chance to speak. Unfortunately, I am going to another neighborhood meeting and will not be able to attend. But then again I just might try just to see what happens.

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