NB Politicus

A decision by the New Britain Ethics Commission to summarily dismiss a complaint brought by Ward 4 Ald. Lawrence Hermanowski over the award of a no-bid $68,000 fencing contract is the latest example of the Stewart administration’s politicization of the ethics process in municipal government.

Current ethics commissioners are all appointees of Stewart and the commission includes contributors to his campaigns. When a new charter abolished most city boards and commissions several years ago the ethics commission was re-constituted by city ordinance. It made the Mayor the appointing authority and its members’ terms tied to his election or re-election. The ordinance failed to adopt a sensible provision from the old charter which required an ethics commission composed of members serving five-year terms. The longer terms served to set the ethics board above partisan appointments and represented a buffer against using ethics complaints for political purposes.

Stewart and his allies wasted little time in using the ethics commission for partisan purposes. During his first term, two city aldermen who worked for the city and were members of the AFSCME Local 1186 were the subject of complaints for involvement in city contract issues. The Commission ruled that Ald. Fran Ziccardi, then a union official, faced a conflict as well as Ald. Paul Catanzaro. The complaint filed at the behest of the administration by Citizen Property Owners Association (CPOA) leadership turned an easily resolvable labor/management issue into an unwarranted ethics flap. The ethics complaint was no more than a thinly-veiled attack on public employees.

Conversely, a complaint filed against Stewart, a city employee on leave from his fire department job, was dismissed by the ethics board. The complaint argued that Stewart, as the duly elected mayor, had every right to participate in collective bargaining and management issues at the Fire Department, including the hiring of the chief. The complaint, however, cited an ethics provision requiring Stewart as the Mayor to file a disclosure statement about his status on leave from the Fire Department. The ethics board, acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mayor’s office, ruled in Stewart’s favor, ignoring case law and the provision requiring a disclosure statement.

The Hermanowski complaint alleges a conflict involving a considerable amount of public dollars based on the ethics code that was strengthened within the last year to include conflicts arising when appointed and elected officials are involved as vendors in city contracts. At issue is the no-bid award that went to New Britain Fence Co. owned by Wilfredo Pabon, a Police Commission appointee of the Stewart Administration and a Stewart campaign contributor. Pabon’s son is also a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. “No other fence company was given a similar opportunity to provide such a quote, “ according to Hermanowski ‘s September 19^th complaint, which stated the “process was not open and public” as required by ordinance.

Mayor Stewart responded that an “emergency” existed because of a threat of illegal dumping and vacant buildings. Hermanowski, however, maintains that the city had ample time to seek bids since the city took control of the property on August 4^th from the CT Housing Finance Authority.

Stewart attacked Hermanowski, calling him “a political hack” and dismissed the issue as an effort by Democrats to embarrass his administration. But Stewart’s quick award of the fencing contract led The Hartford Courant to admonish the Mayor in a recent editorial for overstepping his authority and playing fast and loose with the ethics process. On it merits, the Hermanowski complaint deserved further review and consideration by the ethics commission. It is unfortunate that the partisanship of the Stewart administration has overtaken the current ethics process, making it a rubber stamp when potential conflicts arise involving public money and public officials in his administration. That should not stop Common Council members from exercising appropriate oversight on the award of city contracts and to insist on an open and public bidding process to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.

It may be an obscure issue for most Americans – a foreign policy matter that dates to an event that occurred in the early part of the 20^th Century. But for Armenian Americans what the U.S. Congress has said and done about the mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians in World War I matters a lot.

The issue came back to me in the run up to the August 8^th Primary between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont when I chatted with Sean Smith, the departed manager of Lieberman’s primary campaign at a New Britain candidate forum. “Sorry we lost you on this one,” Smith said regarding my support for Ned Lamont. “You lost me 16 years ago,” I replied.

There have been many reasons given this year about the disenchantment of Connecticut Democrats in their junior Senator. But the words I heard from Senator Lieberman on the Armenian issue 16 years ago were the beginning of my political disenchantment with him. In February, 1990, Joe Lieberman could have cast a vote that would have confirmed a commitment to high principles and morality in America’s foreign policy. At issue was a resolution introduced by Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), the minority leader, to commemorate the mass killing of Armenian civilians during World War I by the Ottoman Turks. The symbolic vote for S.J. 212 would have made April 24, 1990 “a national day of remembrance of the 75^th anniversary of the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923,” according to a Reuters report in The New York Times that year. The Armenian National Committee of America observed that Lieberman “voted to kill this measure despite the Connecticut Armenian community’s extensive efforts to educate him on the Armenian genocide and Lieberman’s own insistence that American foreign policy be founded on moral principles.”

Lieberman said no to this symbolic vote –siding with the first Bush administration and Republican Dick Cheney – despite harsh criticism from the Armenian American community. Subsequently, Lieberman reversed his position saying in 1992 “we must remember the Armenian Genocide and other abuses of state authority against ethnic minorities.” The flip flop would once again allow Lieberman to be on both sides of an issue.

When Lieberman and Cheney became the vice presidential nominees in 2000, Sasha Boghosian, a public affairs consultant and advocate of Armenian interests, wrote: “The November general election is without a doubt the most important for the United States of America. Unfortunately it is a tossup between two tickets that are mediocre at best (and downright uncooperative and dangerous at worst) on Armenian issues.”

I never would have known about S.J. 212, let alone remember it in 2006, had I not attended a Lieberman appearance at the University of Hartford after the resolution failed in the Senate 16 years ago. Lieberman, then two years into his Senate term, was sharing his positions on several issues when he volunteered why he did not support the resolution on honoring the Armenian victims. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” Lieberman said. Lieberman received a call “from a defense contractor in Fairfield County” who did business with Turkey. The contractor didn’t want to offend the Turkish government. Lieberman agreed and voted against the resolution. [Who says he never listens to the wishes of his constituents?]

Lieberman had plenty of company in opposing the 1990 Armenian resolution. The Bush Administration opposed this gesture of sympathy because of the geopolitics of the region and a reluctance to offend Turkey. Opposing the official commemoration in 1990, Lieberman opted for what has been a career-long penchant for militarism and military spending over human rights and diplomacy. His vote on the Armenian question, like his intransigence on Iraq policy today, showed that a well-honed image as a senator of principles and high morals on foreign policy has always been more cosmetic than real. Siding with a fat cat arms dealer from Fairfield County was more important to Lieberman than showing a measure of sympathy for the victims of one of the last century’s human tragedies.