Walker Tells City Council Bridgeport At Critical Crossroads

David Walker
David Walker addresses City Council.

David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General, urged the City Council Monday night to avoid conflicts that “have caused the city and its residents significant embarrassment. These conflicts have also served to reduce the willingness and ability of the City Council to effectively and credibly address the financial and economic development challenges facing the city.” Walker’s remarks follow:

As a concerned and caring citizen of Bridgeport, I have studied the City Charter, City Ordinances and the City’s financial condition. I have also attended a number of City Council and Board of Education meetings. In doing so, it has become clear that Bridgeport is at a critical crossroads. It can either continue to pursue the failed policies and approaches of the past or it change course and create a better future. Whether it changes course largely depends on the actions of the Mayor and this City Council.

To help put things in perspective, I have provided a copy of an Op-Ed from yesterday’s Connecticut Post along with a copy of my comments to the City Clerk  tonight for entry into the official record. The Op-Ed was written by Mark Funkhouser, who is a former Mayor of Kansas City, MO and the current head of the Governing Institute.

In his Op-Ed, Dr. Funkhouser noted three key challenges that Bridgeport faces–governance, debt and demographics. First and foremost, Bridgeport has major governance challenges, including the fact that four members of this City Council are also City employees. No matter what anyone thinks about these individuals personally, their involvement on the City Council is a clear violation of the current City Charter as well as basic good governance practices. It is only a matter of time before the related state law is revised to restore the basic concept of home rule on local governance issues. In the interim, irrespective of the individuals involved, this Council should not elect or appoint City employees to leadership positions or committees that violate the basic principal-agent relationship referenced in the Op-Ed.

Irrespective of any related legal arguments, it’s important for all of us to remember that the law is the floor of acceptable behavior. There are higher ethical and moral standards that people should strive to meet, especially elected officials and other public servants. For example, all public officials should avoid any action or activity that might raise even an appearance of a conflict of interest. Unfortunately. Bridgeport does not have a good track record in this regard. For example, I filed a major ethics complaint almost six months ago that involves some of the top officials in City Government! Candidly, it is unacceptable, and possibly even illegal, that this matter has gone so long without resolution.

The truth is, past conflicts have caused this City and its residents significant embarrassment. These conflicts have also served to reduce the willingness and ability of the City Council to effectively and credibly address the financial and economic development challenges facing the City. Furthermore, these conflicts and the related embarrassments clearly serve to reduce the willingness of businesses to locate in Bridgeport.

Second, Bridgeport is in poor financial condition with about four times the total liabilities and unfunded promises per person as Stockton, CA, and Stockton is currently in bankruptcy. Bridgeport must restructure its existing retirement plans in an equitable and sustainable manner, and grow the taxable Grand List faster than the city budget if it expects to avoid bankruptcy in the future.

Finally, Bridgeport has huge demographic challenges with a per capita income that is significantly below the national average combined with a much higher unemployment rate than the national average. It also faces much larger achievement gaps and dropout rates in its education system than the national and state averages.

Let me be clear, it’s not too late to create a comeback in Bridgeport. Bridgeport has certain strengths, including its geographic location and the amount of property it has available for development. However, creating a comeback will require the Mayor and the City Council to face the facts, speak the whole truth, and start making tough choices. As I mentioned, a top priority must be to grow the tax base faster than the City budget. To do so, the City Council should have independent and professional help in connection with key financial, legal and other matters. You should also seek input from qualified citizens in the City.

In that regard, last April I provided several pages of budget-related recommendations to the City Council which were largely ignored. I respectfully request that you take another look at them and the sooner the better. I also suggest that you engage in constructive discussions with the Mayor regarding those suggestions and other issues that you feel are appropriate in order to help inform his next proposed budget.

Under our current City Charter, the Mayor has by far the most power when it comes to determining the final City budget. Therefore, the Mayor and I have recently agreed to meet to discuss my past suggestions and other issues of mutual interest and concern. I am also willing to meet with members of this Council at mutually convenient times in the future.

In closing, effective government starts with good governance. Your actions tonight are critical in that regard. According to tonight’s agenda, you will elect a City Council President, make Committee assignments, and presumably make Committee Chair appointments.

In my opinion, such elections and appointments should be based primarily on Council Members’ interests, backgrounds and abilities. In addition, they should ensure that any potential conflicts are avoided.

Your actions tonight will demonstrate how serious you are about doing the right thing and leading by example. The people and the press are watching and Bridgeport’s future is at stake.

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  1. Kansas City Mayor’s Wife Causes A Stir
    by FRANK MORRIS
    September 29, 2008 5:33 PM

    Update: The day this story aired, Ed Wolf, chief of staff to Mayor Mark Funkhouser, resigned his post. Wolf is expected to be deposed in a sexual and racial harassment lawsuit against the mayor’s wife, Gloria Squitiro.

    Kansas City, Mo., has done something perhaps no other city has: It passed an ordinance to keep the mayor’s wife from volunteering in his office.

    Mayor Mark Funkhouser responded with the first veto in the city’s history.

    “I know what I need. And I choose to have my wife beside me. And I don’t give a flat damn who cares,” Funkhouser says of Gloria Squitiro, his wife of 30 years.

    Squitiro describes herself as a “feisty, tiny, little Italian broad.” She’s open, effusive and earthy. Before jumping into politics last year, she had been a birthing coach who has worked with more than 500 couples.

    When Funkhouser ran for mayor, Squitiro jumped in to manage–and humanize–the campaign. They beat the local business and political establishment.

    And when Mayor Funkhouser moved into City Hall, Squitiro grabbed a tiny cubical right outside his door. Squitiro says that, after 30 years together, she knows exactly how Funkhouser thinks. So when people in the office have questions for the mayor–and he’s busy–they can just ask her.

    “I am the link, from him to them, them to him, him to people in the community,” she says.

    City Council Ordinance

    Yael Abouhalkah, a columnist with The Kansas City Star, says city residents don’t need a gatekeeper in the mayor’s office.

    Abouhalkah backed Funkhouser in last year’s election, but he didn’t figure on Squitiro’s huge role in the administration.

    “She is irritating. She is outspoken. I think the mayor’s even admitted that she can be brash. And, yes, some council members don’t like that,” Abouhalkah says.

    Indeed, all 12 of them voted for an ordinance that would stop Squitiro from volunteering in the mayor’s office.

    Councilwoman Jan Marcason sponsored it.

    “When a spouse or someone closely related to you is working for you, your judgment is clouded by your feelings for them, and so there’s a lack of accountability,” Marcason says.

    Squitiro has done a few things that just might get a normal staffer canned. For one, she sent out a holiday letter that describes a medical exam Funkhouser underwent.

    The letter turned up on blogs and, eventually, in major newspapers and magazines.

    Then, Squitiro drew a lawsuit. The suit claims she’s prone to overtly sexual and racist talk in the mayor’s office. And that sparked the ordinance banning her type of volunteer service.

    Protection Or Power Grab?

    Council members say they have to protect the city. But Funkhouser considers it a power grab and a pointless diversion.

    Funkhouser says he should be left alone to help fix the city’s problems.

    “People say ‘When are you going to get the weeds cut?’ People say the police response takes too long. My God, there were 20 murders in Kansas City in August, the worst month we’ve had in 20 years,” Funkhouser says. “That’s what people care about, and that’s what I’m working on, and I want to be left alone to do that.”

    Members of the City Council say they, too, want to get past this. But they blame the whole flap on Funkhouser’s intransigence. And say they’re eager to get on with the city’s real business.

    But Funkhouser insists that ordinance or no, no matter who it annoys, Squitiro’s sticking with him in the mayor’s office.

    That means the fight over Kansas City’s first lady is likely to shift soon from City Hall to the court house.

    Frank Morris reports for member station

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    1. Ron,
      Why are you posting this dated, irrelevant and personal attack trash? The governance issue and other matters in Dr. Funkhouser’s Op-Ed are very serious issues. It looks like you are part of the machine since you are trying to make light of these very serious matters. You should spend more time doing research designed to help improve the City rather than defend the status quo.

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      1. AP updated 1/22/2008 5:30:36 PM ET

        KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A city parks board appointee has resigned after her controversial membership in an anti-illegal immigration group prompted two organizations to take their annual conventions elsewhere.

        Mayor Mark Funkhouser said the board member, Frances Semler, told him she did not feel supported by him, as drama continued to swirl over her membership in the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

        “I am disappointed that Ms. Semler has stepped down from the parks board,” Funkhouser said in a brief statement Tuesday. “She says she didn’t feel supported. I think the record shows differently.”

        Semler did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

        Funkhouser spokesman Kendrick Blackwood said the mayor was not aware that Semler, 73, planned to resign and did not know until the office received a fax from her late Monday night.

        Funkhouser appointed Semler last summer to the five-member park board, which considers such issues as off-leash dog areas and outdoor party permits.

        Protests and claims
        Her appointment triggered protests from minority groups, including the National Council of La Raza, which voted in October to cancel plans to hold its 2009 convention in Kansas City because of Semler’s membership in the Minutemen. The Arizona-based Minutemen advocates vigilante patrolling of the Mexican border and reports illegal immigrants to authorities.

        Last week the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said it also decided to move its convention from Kansas City to New Orleans.

        Charles Steele Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, advised other civil rights organizations to boycott the city over Semler’s involvement with the Minuteman.

        “We are asking all civil rights organizations to stay out of Kansas City. We are going to shut you down,” Steele said.

        ‘Unfounded and unjust’
        In the fax sent late Monday, Semler said accusations against the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps “have been unfounded and unjust.”

        “Members of the City Council of Kansas City have made vicious, false and irresponsible claims about me. One member has publicly, with arrogance, expressed her support for ‘open borders,'” the fax said.

        Funkhouser said he hoped Kansas City could move on.

        “Now it is time for the city to move forward and put this matter behind us,” his statement said.

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      2. Funkhouser: Free use of car was ‘wasn’t worth it by a long shot’
        July 1, 2010

        Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s 1997 Toyota Corolla will remain parked in its coveted spot at City Hall after all.

        Responding to a public outcry, Funkhouser announced Tuesday that he will decline a local dealership’s offer to provide him with free use of a Honda hybrid beginning next month.

        “It was like one unit of benefit and 20 units of hassle,” he said in an interview in his City Hall office. “It wasn’t worth it by a long shot.”

        In the future, he said, he will only accept gifts that other mayors receive.

        Ethics experts and council members who last week had criticized Funkhouser’s accepting the car applauded his change of heart Tuesday.

        “It was a good decision,” said Councilwoman Jan Marcason.

        Council members John Sharp and Russ Johnson echoed Marcason. However, they added that the council needs to look at closing the loophole that allows city officials to accept expensive gifts with no requirement except that they file a report disclosing the gift with the state.

        “I don’t think it is right for any of us as elected officials to accept expensive gifts,” Sharp said.

        Funkhouser conceded he did not anticipate the free ride “would be such a big deal” because he could legally accept it.

        “The car sucked up time and energy,” said Funkhouser, who would still have received his $600-a-month car allowance. “I don’t care what car I ride in. Why am I wasting time arguing about it?”

        But he does care that it not be the brand-new Lincoln Town Car leased by then-Mayor Kay Barnes a day after his election.

        Funkhouser also announced Tuesday that the city will pay $5,647 to terminate the two-year lease for the Town Car early. That’s in addition to the almost $1,500 the city has made in monthly payments since March.

        Mayors since at least the 1950s have used city-provided Town Cars. Funkhouser has declined the Town Car and the police officers who drove his four immediate predecessors, saying both were unnecessary expenses to the taxpayers.

        The Barnes-acquired Town Car is being returned to North Towne Lincoln this week.

        “The 2007 Lincoln Town Car earned five-star safety ratings in all five categories,” said Ford Motor Credit spokeswoman Meredith Libbey. “It is an American-made flexible fuel vehicle that runs on an ethanol/gas mixture with up to 85 percent ethanol, which is ‘grown’ in Missouri and pumped at more than 70 locations in Missouri. What’s not to like?”

        Officials at Honda of Tiffany Springs, which offered the Civic Hybrid, didn’t return telephone calls.

        Attempts to swap the Town Car for a Ford car made at a local plant were unsuccessful, city officials said.

        However, union leaders are still unhappy that Funkhouser won’t be tooling around town in a locally made vehicle.

        Jim Stoufer, president of the United Auto Workers Local 249, said politically it was smart for Funkhouser to give up the free car. But he said workers are irritated that Funkhouser didn’t trade the Town Car for a Mercury Mariner or Ford Escape Hybrid made at the Claycomo plant and that so many tax dollars have been wasted on canceling the lease.

        “People are so upset,” he said. “They took it as a personal insult. It is a big thing.”

        But politically, Funkhouser made the right call and is unlikely to suffer long term from having accepted the hybrid initially, said three ethics experts who last week had criticized him.

        Deborah Rhode, a law professor and director of Stanford University’s Center on Ethics, and Judy Nadler, senior fellow in government ethics at Santa Clara University in California and a former Santa Clara mayor, both said Funkhouser was correct to reverse course in the face of intense ethical and political questions.

        “I think the public appreciates politicians who are willing to admit error,” Rhode said. “He is admitting he misjudged what the public’s moral response would be.”

        Changing his mind is good for the city and Funkhouser because it shows he is willing to admit mistakes and squelch an escalating set of problems, said Char Miller, a professor at Trinity University in San Antonio. And voters will respond to a mayor driving his own car.

        “He is new to the job and he will be more wise and cautious in the future about such things,” Miller said. “It shows a capacity to respond to public protests.”

        However, don’t look for Funkhouser to change his mind any time soon about appointing to the local parks board Frances Semler, a member of the local Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which has taken a militant stance against illegal immigrants.

        He said the Honda isn’t a matter of principle to him but Semler is.

        ““There is a principle involved in the Frances Semler situation: her right of free speech,” he said, adding that thousands of Kansas Citians agree with Semler’s views.

        The council voted last week to call for Semler’s resignation and ask Funkhouser to seek her removal if she does not do so.

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  2. If the Mayor spent as much time working his job as he does fundraising, maybe we’d have some economic development in Bridgeport. Note out-of-town host, out-of-town money and Moales is still treasurer. Now if Finch and Moales would just leave town …

    Spend an evening with Mayor Bill Finch and Friends
    Thursday, December 5th
    5:30-7:30pm
    At the home of Dan Levinson
    42 Owenoke Park
    Westport, Connecticut
    $100 per ticket
    Re-Elect Bill Finch may accept up to $1,000 per individual
    Re-Elect Bill Finch may accept up to $1,500 per political action committee.
    Personal or PAC checks payable to “Re-Elect Bill Finch”
    Re-Elect Bill Finch 2015
    Contribution: o $100 ο $250 ο $500 ο $1,000 ο Other _______________
    Name: ________________________________________________________________________
    Residential Address: _______________________________________________________________
    City, State, Zip: __________________________________________________________________
    Occupation: ______________________________ Employer: ___________________________________
    E-Mail: _________________________________________ Phone: __________________________________
    Please indicate if you are a: Lobbyist ______ Lobbyist spouse ______ Lobbyist dependent ______
    If your total contributions exceed $400, please indicate if you or a business with which you are associated have a contract
    with the City of Bridgeport valued at more than $5,000: YES ______ NO ______
    STATE LAW PROHIBITS ACCEPTANCE OF CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE FORM OF CORPORATION OR PARTNERSHIP CHECKS. ALSO, PLEASE NO CASH OR MONEY ORDERS. YOU MUST BE 16 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER TO CONTRIBUTE.
    Please make your check payable to: Re-Elect Bill Finch (Mail to 508 Clark Street, Bridgeport, CT 06606)
    PLEASE RSVP TO GOFINCH2015@GMAIL.COM by November 27th, 2013
    Paid for by Re-Elect Bill Finch, Kenneth Moales, Jr., Treasurer. Approved by Bill Finch. Printed in-house. Labor donated.
    Re-Elect Bill Finch

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    1. $100 to attend a dinner party for the mayor’s re-election. I’d gladly pass, this guy has done NOTHING to deserve contributions from me or anyone else for that matter.

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      1. OlofsonD, I understand your position but Baffled in Bridgeport has done everyone a service by posting the fundraiser information. On OIB most of those who post here do not care for Mayor Finch but writing and complaining about the mayor is one thing, but Mayor Finch is taking direct action and “Money is the Mother’s Milk of Politics.”

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  3. BiB,
    Nothing at all wrong with this fundraiser and before you condemn, you should investigate.

    Levinson is a rich, Westport financial guy. He also has a huge interest in the environment and heads up a non-profit (not his source of income) that has worked extensively with Bridgeport schools. They have set up, funded and maintained urban gardens at our schools with the produce grown being consumed by Bridgeport students.

    Seems to me like this is a great guy and he has worked well with Finch in this regard. Why would he be condemned for fund-raising?

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    1. Not a slam on Levinson, though I have an opinion, it is about Finch who spends more time fundraising for himself than doing something productive for the city. Not to mention the class warfare he engages in when he’s not hitting his rich friends up for money. The guy is a hypocrite–assuming he’s that smart.

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  4. Levinson’s Group, Green Village Initiative was founded in Westport but was basically kicked out of Westport for his dictatorial, egotistical manner and for the way he treated people. He has raised a lot of money in Westport and was accepted with open arms by Finch but not by Bridgeport. Finch got him a ten-year lease on a two-acre property on Reservoir Avenue on property originally purchased with HUD funding for housing and business development. The lease is for $1 a year. The City has abandoned its community garden program in place for thirty-four years in favor of this by playing politics and wiping out its Block Grant allocation. The farm on Reservoir Avenue is not a bad thing but it is not supported by the community. The twenty gardens GVI put at schools all dry up and die every summer, again, no community support. This group has monopolized all city resources and has diverted all other funding away from grassroots groups such as from Fairfield County Community Foundation. Outsiders seem to have run Bridgeport for quite some time and this is another example.

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  5. *** The usual outside of Bpt $ influence and support by whom and for what reasons is the question. But of course, it’s just Dems helping Dems, no? Bpt political supporters are all tapped out from the high taxes and overall cost of living in an urban city “sinkhole” going down slowly but surely. *** FORGETABOUTIT ***

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  6. What is Finch doing in Westport trying to raise money for himself so he can live large in broken-down Bridgeport? I know he has few friends in the City. Why is he not doing this event at Testicle’s restaurant with the old gang? Maybe trouble in the Park City?

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