When you issue a Freedom of Information request to Bridgeport’s City Attorney’s Office, the lawyers there don’t exactly do backflips to accommodate. About four weeks ago Mary-Jane Foster, eyeing a run for the mayoralty, issued an FOI request for the amount of moolah paid to outside lawyers from the date Bill Finch took office. Bridgeport has a full staff of employee lawyers. It also pays outside lawyers for a variety of cases covering employee terminations, education, land use and more. Foster wants to know how much has been paid to outside lawyers in light of the city’s fiscal challenges. My guess is millions. You know how lawyers are, the more dough they make the more they knead. Or is it need? Statement from Foster:
Bridgeport businesswoman and social action advocate Mary-Jane Foster, who is exploring a run for office, issued the following statement regarding the Finch administration’s lack of response to an FOI request.
“Mayor Finch touts his commitment to transparent government and yet here he is saying one thing and doing another. I filed a Freedom of Information request nearly one month ago. To date, I have received a form letter acknowledging receipt of my request and nothing else. How long will the administration drag its feet before providing access to the requested information?
“This administration’s recent actions indicate that the city is in serious fiscal crisis–seeking $30M in tax anticipation notes, selling City Hall & the Annex, delaying pension payments, seeking millions in union concessions … all while buying out employee contracts and litigating wrongful termination suits. Where is the money coming from, who’s been retained to fight these battles, at what cost, and how many of these firms/individuals have political connections to the mayor? Were contracts awarded competitively according to the city’s purchasing requirements? The documentation I have requested should illuminate the issue.”
The content of the FOI request follows:
March 8, 2011
Mark Anastasi, City Attorney
City of Bridgeport
999 Broad Street
Bridgeport, CT 06604VIA REGISTERED MAIL
Dear Attorney Anastasi:
This letter is intended to replace the FOI request I submitted on 3/2/11. Revised requests are in bold.
Chapter 7, section 4 of the City Charter states that outside legal counsel may only be retained with the approval of the City Attorney.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting the following for the period December 1, 2007 to the present:
1. A copy of any retainer agreement(s), or any other type of professional service agreement(s), between the City of Bridgeport and outside legal counsel, detailing the scope of services, cases/issues on which the firm(s) will work, and objectives of the representation.
2. Records of invoices, whether paid or pending, and payments, including canceled checks, made to any of the outside firms retained during this period.
3. Copies of final reports, memoranda, e-mails, or other communications from outside counsel to the City Attorney, mayor, and/or relevant department head in which the resolution of each case was presented. Please include details of financial settlements negotiated and accepted on the City’s behalf.
In addition, Chapter 7, section 4 of the City Charter states that the decision to retain outside legal counsel is to be made “provided that funds are available for such purpose.” Please provide the budget, including all line items, for the City Attorney’s office for FY 07/08 to the present. Additionally, if the invoice is not charged to one of the City Attorney’s department budget lines, please provide any written documentation from the OPM director, finance director, CAO, mayor’s chief of staff, or other authority indicating the department to be charged with corresponding documentation that sufficient funds are available.
Given the volume of the material specified above, I am revising my original request to ask that the information be compiled for my review and inspection prior to being photocopied. Upon completion of my review, I will determine what information is to be copied. Kindly advise an estimated date for when these materials will be assembled for review.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this REVISED request.
Sincerely,
Mary-Jane Foster
cc: Mayor Bill Finch
Maybe there was a fire in the part of the office where those records are stored. Or a flood. Or a fire and a flood. Four feet of water in a basement can destroy a multitude of sins.
Foster is no April Fool! Memo to Finch: Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. We won’t be fooled again on Sept. 13, 2011.
My dog ate my homework, honest!
My toilet overflowed from Trumbull.
Anastasi:
“I left it in the coatroom at Testo’s.”
Gossip of The Rialto!
Finch set to announce his endorsement of Mary-Jane Foster and step out of the mayoral race. Malloy will be appointing him to be the Director of the Connecticut Port Authority.
Finch ought to be appointed Director of the Connecticut Cosmetology Authority.
Anastasi to Finch: “It was on fire when I laid down in it, honest!”
Does the BOE have their own lawyers or do they use the ones from City Hall? Are there any guidelines about this?
BOE in the past used the city attorney’s office. However, they never could handle the work and always outsourced the work. Just recently the BOE hired their own attorney.
I’m guessing the city hires outside counsel to handle BOE legal issues.
The Bridgeport BOE could not find their collective assholes with roadmaps and flashlights.
Welcome to my neighborhood, Ms. Foster.
Back on May 17, 2010, Andre Baker and myself submitted a resolution seeking the following:
Be it resolved that the city forward to the Ordinance Committee a list of all contracts awarded in the past 6 month in excess of $10,000. Such list shall include:
1) Procuring officer
2) The bidding process, i.e. informal, formal, Bid Sync, advertised, sole source exception, etc.
3) Minority outreach efforts/consideration
4) Total value of contract or “not to exceed” value
5) Term of the contract
We are coming up upon a one-year anniversary and to date the only thing the city produced was a report of vendor and dollar amounts but no one could explain what the report actually represented and what were the selection criteria. In the meeting City Attorney Anastasi could not or would not respond to my question as to whether or not the City Attorney’s office maintained some type of log indicating contracts reviewed and approved and who on staff reviewed it.
So the city wants us to believe if the city is sued, we could not even determined if there was a contract approved by the City Attorney’s office.
At the last ordinance committee meeting, last week, there again was no update from the city.
This is the pathetic bleep you get from the city when it comes to transparency.
And worse yet, my fellow council members for the most part accept it.
I’m surprised your fellow council members have the time to accept anything. They’re all so busy spending that $9,000.00 annual stipend up at Mario’s pasta joint.
So the true answer is replace the administration’s current personnel, both elected, appointed or simply showed up.
You probably cannot guess how long you will be stonewalled, so go after replacing … about 164 days left to turn this system upside down … the current officeholder.
Bob, you expected anything different from this group of lemmings? This is the same group that voted in a budget with an $8 million deficit, no questions asked.
Here is another reason why Mary-Jane will have a hard time getting her info.
Mark butts into everyone else’s business and never has time to do what he is supposed to do.
Andre Baker and I recently submitted another resolution calling on a change to the Council Rules requiring full financial disclosure on any item submitted to the council. How much will it cost, where are the funds coming from, is there money in the budget or will it have to be transferred and if so from what account, etc.
Although a legal opinion is not required on a council rule, Mark felt the need to weigh in on the subject. Part of what he wrote was the following:
“The third and fourth Whereas clauses do not appear to be accurate, and in any case are less than flattering as to the City’s public reputation. Therefore, it is respectfully recommended that they be deleted or appropriately amended.”
We are paying the man over $100,000 a year to make nonsensical comment like this!!!
By the way, here is the language Mark objected to:
Whereas, such concessions have forced a tremendous burden on city employees while normal city expenditures go unfettered without transparency and notification to council members, employees, residents and taxpayers; and
Whereas, such lack of transparency leaves too many stakeholders in the dark,
Were the two clauses changed?
When this was first mentioned on OIB I said “good luck with that one.” I still say, good luck with that one.
Well I don’t think MJF will wait forever. There is the Attorney General’s Office and there also is the courts. I do believe she will move forward on this.
When & if these documents are ever released, would MJ Foster share these with the public? Many people would be interested by the depth of these deceptions.
I think MJF will release the documents to the public. Also, I don’t think she’s going to give this one up. She has deep pockets and is a practicing attorney herself. She knows how the system works and knows how to work the system. Bill Finch and Mark Anastasi and Mario Testa are up against it.
She has the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission on her side … you just have to wait while they process the complaint, if it’s made. It’ll take about 30-40 days to hear back, and then a hearing will be scheduled about 90 days from the initial complaint!
Been there … you know the rest! The system sort of works, but it always takes a long time. Then the City really starts the game of attrition!
So this information could become public just before the primary in September. Huzzah!
Until Foster announces she is a real candidate, she can FOI all she wants. Sorry to say for her she can’t beat the cheats in the DTC with their threats of losing your jobs if you don’t do what Mario and Finch says. Chickenshits following their brainwashing master.
She can’t go to the streets of the city and be taken seriously. Neither can Finch go door to door so he has to buy people off and intimidate. He goes and knocks on a door, it will be slammed in his face.
Only candidate I hear about walking the streets is Gomes. If he gets the people to register and to the polls in September it is a landslide in his favor. BIG IF. He came to my door and I give him credit, he knows his stuff about running this city. We had a good talk.
Don’t let MJ’s looks deceive you. She is a tough cookie. I have no doubt she will pursue her FOI claim all the way. She isn’t going to sit back and wait for Mark Anastasi to give up the records because he never will.
I believe a Foster-Gomes united campaign is our best chance at winning back our City. Foster is more experienced and has a proven track record so I would support her for Mayor. Gomes has the inside track of where the problems are and how to fix them. He should have a key place in the mayor’s cabinet: CAO, Finance Director or chief of staff.
So she should give up then, is that what you’re saying? Call in the dogs, piss on the fire? Your pessimism is appalling. The city’s representatives will be fighting this with a lot of foot dragging and smoke screens and so forth. They don’t want the financial records released because it may show where a lot of the city’s money is going.
city hall smoker is right about MJF. She is a scrapper. It would be nice to say the DTC’s days of controlling the city’s political life are approaching an end. It would be naive to think that. Whoever assumes the mayoralty will still have to deal with Mario Testa’s wonks on the City Council.
If some of the city council “wonks” are replaced, it will certainly bring Mario down a few pegs. Whoever the anti-Finch candidate is, he or she needs to run a ticket of competent people who are not loyal “calamarians” and who do not work for the city. You start with the city council and then you start replacing dept heads. It is amazing the city runs at all with the total lack of leadership. Andy Nunn sends a few emails from his city iPhone and calls it work. For all we know, he’s home in Monroe or at the bar at Tiago’s. Same with CC.
The Bridgeport Kid // Apr 1, 2011 at 7:56 pm
to your posting
Kid,
The only way to do this is to make the effort to have other city council candidates running to replace current underperforming members. Absolutely necessary. If this doesn’t happen, then hope of change is going to be just that … hope.
Just remember what Mark Felt told Bob Woodward when they met in the parking garage: “Follow the money.” He did, and it led to some strange places.
www .washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2002/06/03/AR2005111001231.html
Did Judge Carmen Lopez ever get the information she was seeking from the City of Bridgeport last year?
Is same sex, sane sex?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uYLTpabla8
The local news media silences people with apathy, especially the Post.
MJ is a lawyer too. If she follows the paper trail it will probably lead to that Madison Avenue restaurant in the North End.
That’s what I was thinking …