City budget chief Frank Altieri (in photo) vowed never to file a disclosure form required of other city officials, suggesting to his boss, Mayor John DeStefano, that he was prepared to quit first. That revelation comes amid e‑mails obtained by the Independent, which also reveal that Altieri has been soliciting charitable contributions from businesses he deals with as a city official.
On Nov. 2, 2005, Altieri wrote to DeStefano that city Corporation Counsel Tom Ude “spoke to me today about the possibility” that he would file an ethics disclosure form that all other city officials file. Altieri, largely believed to be City Hall’s most powerful official after the mayor, has refused to fill out the form because he is technically a city “contractor” rather than a city “employee” under an arrangement he worked out with DeStefano that allows him to live outside the city and double-dip into state pension coffers as well as the city budget. (Click here and here to read our original stories on the subject.)
“Tom spoke to me today about the possibility of me including more information than is required of other contractors,” Altieri wrote to DeStefano. “On principal I will NOT do that. This might be a good time for both of us to decide on my exit strategy.”
Altieri’s message neglected to mention that all other top city officials, including those below him in the city bureaucratic ladder, must fill out a disclosure form that notes whether relatives work for the city government and whether relatives have a financial interest in companies doing business with the city any time over his term in public office. The form Altieri fills out as a “contractor” requires him to do neither. (It does require him to state whether he personally owns a share in companies doing business with the city over the past year. He stated that he has no ownership interest in other companies.)
The Independent filed a Freedom of Information request to both Altieri and DeStefano for copies of Altieri’s city e-mail correspondence over the final three months of 2005. Altieri returned the request in an unopened envelope. But DeStefano’s legal staff promptly complied with the request.
The file does not show DeStefano responding by e-mail to Altieri’s Nov. 2 missive. It does show a correspondence between the two on the subject on Oct. 24 and 25.
“As you requested I have reviewed the disclosure form. Other than Carol [Altieri’s wife] working for the Board of Ed, all other matters are covered by the contract,” Altieri wrote. “As I mentioned to you several times if my position in any way becomes a problem for you I will leave. In my tenure what I have done only reflects positively on the City. When in the history of the City has its finances been in such good order?” [Note: A ratings agency recently criticized the city’s financial management and lowered New Haven’s bond rating, although the agency also praised some of the work of Altieri’s department.]
“No disagreement,” DeStefano responded to Altieri. “I just don’t want a non-issue becoming an issue.”
As he has repeatedly in the past, Altieri declined comment to a reporter this week about his ethics lapses. Reached by phone, he stayed silent.
Mayor DeStefano, too, reverting to a bunker mentality he adopted during ethics scandals of the late ’90s, ducked answering questions. (He eventually came forward and embraced transparency and accountability reforms in City Hall, which he has apparently now ditched as he builds a campaign chest to run for governor.) His spokesman issued a statement that didn’t address the major questions but did say Altieri is not leaving city government. (See below.)
Shakedown Artist
The file also reveals that Altieri solicited and received contributions to MS from three companies with which the file shows him doing city business: Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield; McGlarey & Pullen; and Public Financial Management (PFM) of Philadelphia. Altieri served on a fund-raising group called the “MS Corporate Achievers Greater New Haven.”
On Nov. 2, Altieri informed Dominique Soucy, then the development coordinator of the National MS Society, Greater Connecticut chapter, that he was “expecting the following contributions: Anthem BC/BS $1500.00, PFM $1000.00. And McGladury $500.00.”
“I want to thank you for following up with my request for a $1500.00 tax deductible contribution to MS. Your company is very generous. Frank,” Aliteri wrote on Oct. 26 to Michele Zettergen of Anthem.
The file also shows Altieri working directly day to day with the companies, as director of budget and management office hires.
On Nov. 18, he wrote to Katherine Klarman, another Anthem official, “Just a reminder, we need to meet with the prescription drug rep. to discuss some of my concerns. Also, could you give us copies of the plans that you use to administer retiree claims. Thanks Frank.”
“Malik,” Altieri wrote to Malik Muhammad of PFM on Jan. 3, in advance of a conference call with the credit ratings agencies, “I have the a.m. on the 3 Jan. scheduled. I am available in the pm. Please reschedule. Thanks.”
No one would criticize someone for raising money for MS. Rather, the issue is whether a public official puts unspoken, unfair pressure on contractors to contribute to a cause since that official can determine how much money the contractors make with the city. Does the solicitation create the appearance that to do city business, companies have to pony up for an official’s favorite charity?
That issue has arisen in Hartford, too, where state House Speaker Jim Amman has been raising money for MS from lobbyists who have business before him. (Unlike Altieri, Amman gets paid to raise money for MS.)
As Courant columnist Kevin Rennie wrote in one of two columns exposing the Amman “shakedown,” “Let us all agree that multiple sclerosis is a debilitating and vicious disease and that the world will be a better place when a cure is found. The way to that happy day is not, however, for the speaker of the House to undermine the public’s trust in state government.”
Or to undermine the trust in New Haven government, argued Jorge Perez, who heads the Board of Aldermen’s Black and Hispanic Caucus.
“It does definitely give an appearance issue,” Perez said, “that you negotiate with one another. If I want to be on your good side, I’m more likely to do something for you.”
Spurred in part by Altieri’s ethical lapses, Perez has introduced an upgrade to the city’s ethics law. Click here to read about it.
Altieri has been revealed shaking down contractors before — in that case, hitting them up for campaign contributions for DeStefano.
DeStefano Ducks
The issue is a perilous one for John DeStefano. He’s running for governor in the wake of massive corruption and ethics scandals in state government. He claims he wants to run a cleaner government. But would he allow a state budget chief, for instance, to avoid ethics laws by calling himself a “contractor” rather than a state official, the way he allows Altieri to? Would he allow the budget chief to draw a government pension while working full time for government? Would he allow his officials to hit up companies with which they do state business for charity?
DeStefano refused to answer those questions when posed to him through a spokesman. Instead, the spokesman, Derek Slap, issued this “response”:
“There are no plans for Frank Altieri to leave. He has filled out every form that a contractor is required to fill out and he has provided all necessary information — including any ownership interests he has in any companies doing business with the city — of which he has none.
“The people who received personal gain from Mr. Altieri’s efforts are those who suffer from MS. If there’s something wrong with a contractor or city official helping a charity during the course of the day, then should the City give back the one ton of food it collected during the Demolish Hunger Food-Drive? And what about all the supplies collected for Hurricane Katrina families?”
The questions and facts DeStefano refused to address included:
• Would DeStefano allow a state budget chief to do what he allows Altieri
to do — avoid ethics requirements by calling himself a “contractor” rather than an “official”?
• There are clear differences between the form Altieri signs as a “contractor” and the other disclosure form filled by city officials. He has to list companies he has an ownership stake in, including those that do business with the city; but unlike on the other form, he doesn’t need to list companies in which his relatives have a stake. He also, as Altieri noted, doesn’t have to list the names of relatives working for the city.
• Has DeStefano ordered Altieri to fill out the ethics disclosure form?