Remington Site Campaign Spin, And The Making Of Mark Anastasi, A Followup To Maley Money

Remington Demolition

from DoingItLocal.com on Vimeo.

Take a look at this video. If I’m Mayor Bill Finch, I’d run an ad financed by his reelection campaign using this footage. “When the owner of this public health hazard wouldn’t budge, Mayor Bill Finch said take it down.”

Of course, if I’m State Rep. Chris Caruso, or any other mayoral challenger, I’d say “Finch was mayor nearly three years and stuck his head in the sand until that hellhole emerged as a public-health catastrophe! Such leadership. They don’t act until a gun is placed to their head.”

Who’s Mark Anastasi? A Follow-up To Maley Money

Why is the City Attorney’s Office the dumping ground for legal pals of the mayor? Grab a cup of joe.

In 1991, Democrat Joe Ganim defeated Republican Mary Moran to become the city’s 50th chief executive. I was Joe’s chief strategist during the campaign but I did not want to go back to government full time even though he offered the chief of staff position for a whopping $41,000. I went back transitionally for half that pay for 20 hours a week for six months to help him settle in, handle media, set up the office and make department-head recommendations.

The city was a mess financially, his predecessor had placed it into federal bankruptcy court, crime was nuts, key utilities were threatening to leave, UB law school said see ya, a state-imposed financial review board had ultimate control over the budget. You think managing the city is tough now? It was tougher then. Fortunately for Joe, he had a governor Lowell Weicker who was a godsend.

In those early months union concessions were critical to closing an $18 million budget gap. Ganim gave up two week’s pay to persuade unions he needed help. The mayor’s salary then was $52,000. Today it’s more than twice that much. Forget about what happened later. In those early years Ganim paid attention to business and was an excellent mayor. But if Joe was going to give up two weeks pay he’d make sure any department head he hired would do the same. When it came time to name a city attorney, the city’s chief legal counsel, I recommended Larry Merly, a pit-bull lawyer and good guy who had the job under Mayor Tom Bucci from 1985-1989.

The interview between Joe and Merly did not go well. Joe wanted Merly to accept a cut far below what he had been making under Bucci. The city attorney’s position was part time, but the occupant was the lead lawyer overseeing full-time staff. Merly said no. Joe asked for Plan B. If you’re so interested in saving money, I offered, offer the job to an existing city staff lawyer? It won’t cost the city anything.

Who do you recommend? Joe asked.

Mark Anastasi, I said. That’s how Mark Anastasi became city attorney. And he’s had the job nearly 20 years later through Joe Ganim, through John Fabrizi and now into Bill Finch. Why?

Mark is intensely loyal to whomever occupies the mayor’s seat. Doesn’t matter what party, he was once a Republican hired as a young lawyer under Republican Mayor Lenny Paoletta. He serves the mayor. In Mark’s view that simplifies his position. In many ways he deserves the Nobel prize for loyalty. But it sometimes conflicts with what’s right for the city, what is right for the taxpayer.

Mark became the de facto defense attorney for Joe Ganim when Joe refused to turn over his taxpayer-paid cell phone records to the media while under indictment. When Joe left office Mark was kept on by John Fabrizi. Mark, under John, had more of a public voice than currently under Finch. The Fabrizi administration, Mark proclaimed publicly, will be transparent, unlike the last administration (that he had served). Gee, it was Mark who blackened in the transparency to Joe’s cell phone records. But to Mark’s way of thinking that’s what he was supposed to do: make arguments that help the person who appoints him, city attorney title be damned.

Fabs felt it was important to file a lawsuit against one of the firms that had done business with the city during the Ganim years. Did they pick one of the firms that actually engaged in corruption? No, they went after a firm, Klewin Construction, builders of the ballpark and arena, that had nothing to do with the funny business. Nothing. (Full disclosure: I  represented the company.) No matter how many times I told the outside legal counsel hired by the city that the leadership of the company had no knowledge, no involvement at all with any of the funny business during the Ganim years, the lawyers didn’t care. They didn’t want to pay Klewin what was owed Klewin. Millions and millions of legal fees later, financed by city taxpayers, the city lost the Klewin case. Got its ass kicked. Anastasi had a duty to tell Fabs this won’t work. It failed.

The Fabrizi transparency that Anastasi had waxed blew up on two fronts, when the worst-kept secret in the political community was exposed after a drug dealer told the feds he had supplied Fabrizi with some party coke and then Fabs, trying to help his son whose pal was in trouble, asked a state judge in open court for leniency for a sexual predator. Fabs, in his effort to assist his son, told no one, not even his closest advisers he was considering this. Fabs was done as mayor.

Mark Anastasi is a good guy, a hard worker, and good lawyer when not distracted by mayoral whims. But he’s not a strong administrator. The City Attorney’s Office, administratively, has been a dysfunctional wreck for years. Ed Maley, an experienced legislative lawyer in Hartford became friends with Bill Finch when Bill served in the Connecticut State Senate. When Bill became mayor he decided to give his pal Maley a $7,000 per month paying gig as an outside lawyer. Part of that payment was to reorganize the City Attorney’s Office, I dare say, to reduce the impact of the dough paid to outside legal firms. Gee, Mark Anastasi couldn’t figure that out on his own?

The city has to hire the mayor’s bud at $7,000 per month? (To date more than $200,000.) And last week the city pink-slipped two employees in the office, but Maley still gets his $7,000.

The city charter gives the city attorney authority to hire legal counsel. Bottom line: Maley was hired because Finch wanted him hired … more than $200,000 later and counting. It’s Mark’s job, to his way of thinking, to defend the hire. And so it goes.

See link below to City Attorney’s Office budget.

www.bridgeportct.gov/OfficeofPolicyMgmt/Documents/2011%20budget/CITY%20ATTORNEY%2011.pdf