Foster Hits Finch On Hypocrisy

In what could be a prelude to another run for mayor this year, 2011 Democratic mayoral candidate Mary-Jane Foster cites “examples of the cultural DNA of political corruption that has wholly permeated and consumed the operations of this administration.” From Foster:

Mayor Bill Finch needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror before he spends any more time decrying those who violate the public trust. Convictions of elected officials for corrupt, criminal acts surely erode confidence in our government but so do the actions of elected officials who violate the public trust with constant and overbearing actions that result in a political corruption that is surely as destructive.

State Representative Jack Hennessy has introduced a bill that would close the state loophole that allows our city employees to serve on the City Council which is prohibited by our City Charter. The mayor opposes the reform legislation that would truly and sincerely communicate to residents, potential investors and businesses that the city is committed to good governance and fair and transparent transactions. Consider:

• The City Attorney, who serves at the pleasure of the mayor, delivered the opinion that contrary to our City Charter, state law overrides home rule and the charter. As a result, we have city employees who sit on the City Council;

• The president of City Council is employed, at the mayor’s pleasure, as Deputy Director of Labor Relations and also sits on the Airport Commission. Sworn to uphold the City Charter, he instead presides over a legislative branch where he approves his boss’s budget and raises for fellow city employees (including some who are also Council members and others like his boss and all of the staff in his boss’s office). Though a member of the Airport Commission, he claimed to have no answers on the $400,000 driveway the mayor committed the city to build and there has been no investigation by the Council into the debacle.

• A city employee who also sits on the City Council, already once suspended from his city job and given a slap on the wrist following a city investigation into a sexual harassment complaint, is now under investigation for yet another sexual assault allegation. The president of City Council, who, again, is the Deputy Director of Labor Relations, has had to recuse himself. However, as president of City Council, he has done nothing to address this or the previous incident of sexual assault by a fellow council member. The so-called city investigation is in its third month and neither the mayor nor the president of City Council has done anything, besides suspend the council member/employee with pay. City employees who are City Council members who report to their boss, the mayor, cannot possibly operate with any real integrity.

• The city hires a company to conduct current valuations of real estate in the city and the mayor wins a two-year delay from the state legislature in implementing the revaluation (until after at least the mayoral primary this year). The mayor, however, will not discuss or release the results because he says they are incomplete and a draft. A person of integrity would alert taxpayers to the likely tax increase so they could plan accordingly;

• In addition to the constant chaos he’s created in our education system, he has cried poor and not met mandatory funding levels for our schools for 3 years;

• The mayor claims he has cut jobs in government but has increased his own office budget by more than 60%–an increase from $255,634 in 2008 to $669,199—with 6 new staff members;

• For the second time in his two terms, each in primary years, he’s commissioned public relations and marketing campaigns that have cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars;

• Finch, who tried to take the right to vote away from Bridgeport voters in 2011 with a failed and illegal state takeover of the school system and again in 2012 with a proposed charter revision provision, is now proposing to take away the right of a former offender to run for office. Contrary to his position a couple of years ago, Finch now believes Joe Ganim should be precluded for running for office and is frantically trying to get legislation passed this session to short-circuit a potential rival in this fall’s mayoral race.

These are just a few examples of the cultural DNA of political corruption that has wholly permeated and consumed the operations of this administration. It is chronic and unrelenting and has decimated public trust in local government. Every day is another better day in Bridgeport–really? Four tax increases in 7 years, another huge increase looming, firings resulting in legal actions and settlements that now are in the millions of dollars in fees, fines and reparations, interim positions where your actions and loyalties constitute whether you stay or go, unfunded schools but lush public relations campaigns. Bridgeport will get better every day when it is governed with integrity and transparency. I’m looking forward to that day.