Paul Bass Photo
Hours after learning the city had placed her on paid leave pending the results of an investigation into alleged misuse of government money, Nichole Jefferson was at a Dixwell Avenue job-training center working on filling trucks with furniture.
The Harp administration placed Jefferson on leave Wednesday afternoon from her job as executive director of the city’s Commission on Equal Opportunities. In that job, she oversees companies’ compliance with rules on hiring women and blacks and Latinos on government-funded projects. The city’s corporation counsel office is investigating allegations that Jefferson failed to enforce the law and collect fines, and that she misused city money and employees at a quasi-public Dixwell Avenue not-for-profit agency she started called the Construction Workforce Initiative (CWI). (Update: The city has since backtracked on the accusation about fines.)
In an interview with the Independent Wednesday afternoon, Jefferson “absolutely” denied the allegations. She called her suspension political payback for filing a complaint against one of her bosses.
Meanwhile, two U‑Hauls and a third truck appeared at the Dixwell Avenue agency. Jefferson was there, too, along with other people, loading the vehicles. The operation continued hours into the night.
She told the Independent that the crew was removing furniture that she personally owns. She said no financial records were being removed. (Click on the video above to watch some of the interview, which took place around 8:30 p.m.)
“I’m taking out my banquet table and chairs. They belong to me,” Jefferson said. .
“I’m taking my personal possessions because I feel threatened. This isn’t appropriate. This is wrong.
“There’s a police officer out her watching me. Why? Crime is happening. I’ve never done anything but serve the city, the people of New Haven. I’m extremely upset. I’ll just let my lawyers handle it.”
Officer Todd Kelley spent hours in a squad car outside the property. The gates remained closed and locked except when the vehicles were brought in and out.
Formal Notification
Jefferson (pictured) happened not to be in her City Hall office late Wednesday afternoon when a letter was delivered the office formally placing her on paid leave pending results of the investigation.
The letter came from city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson.
“Effective immediately, you are hereby placed on Administrative Leave with Pay and relieved of all job related duties and responsibilities. You are ordered to turn in your city of New Haven issued identification and access cards to me. Accordingly, you are not to report to work,” the letter began.
Reached soon after, Jefferson denied the allegations.
“I dedicated my life to the city. This is politics, unethical behavior by them at the highest level,” she said. “I am very surprised and shocked [to receive this suspension] after 20 years of incredible and dedicated service, all of my evaluations have been outstanding.”
Nemerson wrote in his letter that the city’s corporation counsel has begun the “internal review” into allegations that Jefferson “utilized City of New Haven resources and City of New Haven employee services for the benefit of a private entity on whose board of directors you serve.”
That was a reference to the quasi-public CWI, a not-for-profit training program launched by Jefferson’s office to prepare unemployed or underemployed people for construction work. (Click here and here to read a story about that program.)
The probe is also focused on “allegations that you have failed to carry out your duties as Executive Director of the Commission on Equal Opportunities. There are concerns that you are not enforcing requirements of the City of New Haven’s Equal Opportunities ordinance and that you have failed to collect fines to enforce the ordinance,” Nemerson wrote.
U.S. Attorney In Loop
The corporation counsel has hired an outside attorney, Michael Dolan (pictured), to conduct the investigation.
City officials and Jefferson have tangled in part over access to financial data on the Construction Workforce Initiative. The state Department of Labor has sent $1 million to the program in recent years. Jefferson said the agency has trained 224 people with that money.
The not-for-profit program is legally known as Construction Workforce Initiative 2; it was reconstituted after an earlier incarnation was disbanded. The agency must, by law, file federal 990 tax forms, and must have them on file to receive state grants.
Those forms were not immediately retrievable in a web search Wednesday. Jefferson said the agency did file a 990 for fiscal year 2012 and is completing one for fiscal year 2013.
Attorney Dolan has rung up $9,950 in bills at $250 an hour since last Oct. 27 working on the case, according to an invoice provided to the city Wednesday and obtained by the Independent. His duties have included “meeting with Assistant U.S. Attorney and Law Enforcement re: CWI,” according to the invoice breakdown.
Jefferson countered allegations that the city has not received money from fines collected in CEO cases. “What are they talking about? I just deposited fines three or four months ago,” she said.
She called the action against her “political” payback for her filing a state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) complaint against Nemerson.
“He has been harassing me,” she said. “Because of this administration, I have been sick. … This is not about taxes. This is about politics” and control of her agency.
“I have taken an action based on information that was brought to the corporation counsel based on an investigation that they have been handling,” Nemerson responded Wednesday afternoon. “There is no disciplinary action. Nichole is being paid. She is simply on administrative leave while the investigation continues.”
According to a Thursday New Haven Register article by Mary O’Leary, an appointee of Mayor Toni Harp to the board of Commission on Equal Opportunities has clashed with Jefferson over management of the agency; and the absence of a 990 tax form has also created division. Read more about that here.