Category — Posts

Ed Sullivan celebrates St. Patrick’s Day with Pat Rooney, Maureen O’Hara (who knew how to put over Danny Boy) and the great Rosemary Clooney.

And have a bit of Derry Girls. Sister Michael is a marvel–Protestants and Catholics can agree.

Published March 17, 2022, don’t you know.

State Senator Bob Duff spent the Friday of the Ritter Big East Break in his hometown of Norwalk. The Democrat, a source reports, has a notorious local reputation for ignoring red lights.

On Friday at noon, a local driver who has witnessed Duff flouting the law in the past, saw the Senate majority leader at it again. All the ingredients were there at the intersection of Delaware Avenue and Main Street: red light, traffic, white Subaru with legislative license plate, and the privileged driver.

A driver nearby thought if the past is any predictor of future performance, Duff was about to do it again. The driver aimed his phone and recorded Duff ignoring the traffic signal and turning left. What were the chances? Close to a sure thing.

Your instincts are right, Daily Ructions readers. The dog in the backseat seems more alert to the surroundings than the driver does.

Posted March 12, 2022.

The CT Mirror’s Dave Altimari adds a clearer lens to the growing school construction scandal. The people of Bristol complained that their community was not served by a proper highway. No more. The Bristol-Tolland express served some well-connected traffic.

Altimari’s revelation leaves in tatters Governor Ned Lamont’s churlish claim that we must be careful about calling this a scandal. Nevertheless, some dare not call it a scandal if it might affect this November’s state election.

The no-bid contract to replace Tolland’s Brich Grove Primary School was very, very good to Bristol’s D’Amato Construction Company. It had never built a school until it mysteriously snagged the $46 million Tolland project in 2019. We learned last month from Dr. Walter Willett, Tolland’s superintendent, that Kostantinos Diamantis, the head of the state’s school construction grants program, bullied Tolland into using D’Amato and Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP).

What a school construction roll D’Amato was on in 2019. The company also won a Bristol school construction bid for the Memorial Boulevard Intradistrict Arts Magnet School Project (though it was not the lowest bidder). One member of Bristol’s building committee was Stephan Masotti of Masotti Electric. He cast some helpful votes for D’Amato Construction as a member of the committee.

Several months later, according to Altimari, Masotti Electric received a $2.4 million contract from D’Amato on the Tolland project. What are the odds? “He’s a Bristol guy, and his company has done work for us for more than 30 years,” Tony D’Amato told Altimari. “There’s absolutely no correlation between the two projects. We use his company all of the time.” That declaration is unlikely to be helpful to either D’Amato or Masotti.

D’Amato and Marotto, of course, are from Bristol. Diamantis represented Bristol in the state House of Representatives. Antonietta Roy, owner of CAP, began her business in Bristol. They are, among other things, a vivid reminder of the corrosive nature of no-bid contracts.

The federal criminal investigation continues as potential witnesses submit to interviews by assistant U.S. attorneys, FBI agents, and IRS investigators. D’Amato and Diamantis have denied any wrongdoing.

Published March 9, 2022.

Hostility to competitive bidding in the Lamont administration was documented in a December Department of Administrative Services (DAS) internal memorandum.

DAS project manager Lisa Humble wrote a detailed memo about a nine-minute December 8, 2021 telephone conversation with Mike Sanders, a member of the Hazardous Materials Expertise staff at DAS. Humble was relaying a request from Keith Epstein, Vice President of Infrastructure, Planning & Real Estate at the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU). Epstein was seeking three bids for the Haz-Mat demolition and remediation work at Norwalk Community College.

Sanders was not interested in providing more thanone bid—-from DAS favorite Asbestos Abatement and Insulation Services (AAIS). Sanders, according to Humble’s memorandum, said there was no need to obtain more bids. No company would offer a better deal than AAIS.

AAIS, according to the CT Mirror’s Dave Altimari, received 70% of the state’s hazardous waste and asbestos abatement contracts from 2017. AAIS appeared on a 2016 list of companies that could be used for no-bid emergency contracts. Abuse of the list grew as it was regularly used for contacts that did not involve emergencies. No-bid contracts raised no alarms in the Lamont administration, which has been hostile to tradition notions of transparency.

Sanders died under “suspicious circumstances” of a drug overdose in Old Saybrook, according to police. nine days after his conversation with Humble.

Humble’s memorandum suggests that the failure to of DAS to engage in traditional competitive bidding had begun to engage the attention of DAS employees. A memo to a file, however, is unlikely to attract much notice. It does raise the question of why Josh Geballe, the DAS commissioner who resigned this month, seemed unaware of an alleged contract steering scheme in his department for the three years he was in charge.

Posted March 8, 2022.

The state legislature’s finance and education committees will hold a rare joint meeting to learn more about the school construction financing scandal dogging the Lamont administration. The committees will hear from Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Commissioner Michelle Gilman and Noel Petra, Deputy Commissioner of Real Estate and Construction Services.

If Gilman’s Tuesday confirmation hearing is an indication of the answers she will offer Monday, legislators will have to persist in seeking substantive responses to their questions. Word salads have become the dish of choice for Governor Ned Lamont and his officials when facing questions about the alleged contract steering scheme.

Here are some questions legislators may want to ask:

According to a review by the CT Mirror, two contractors, AAIS and Bestech, “got all but 15 of the 284 purchase orders issued by the state for hazardous waste disposal and demolition from fiscal year 2017 through 2022.” Why did no one at DAS notice that one of those companies, AAIS, was getting more than 70% of those contracts? If they did notice, why did no one say something? You can see the Causes, Effects, Consequences, and Solutions of Illegal Dumping here

Commissioner Gilman offered considerable praise for former budget secretary Melissa McCaw when Lamont announced her resignation on February 25th. Is she satisfied with McCaw’s oversight of the school construction grants program?

After months of questions, no one from DAS or the governor’s office has explained one fundamental decision: How and why was D’Amato Construction, which had never built a school, chosen from the start as the contractor for the $46 million Birch Grove School in Tolland? Will you please tell us?

Tolland’s superintendent, Dr. Walter Willett, said Kostantinos Diamantis, – former head of the school construction grant program, told him there would be problems with the Birch Grove School project if the town did not hire D’Amato and Construction Advocacy Professions (CAP). Why do you think Tolland officials felt they had no one in authority to turn to rescue them from those alleged threats?

How can you be certain that the same people at DAS who appeared to have noticed nothing about this growing scandal are capable of initiating and overseeing changes in it?

Mr. Petra is a vocal opponent of oversight, as shown by his harsh criticism of the State Properties Review Board that has saved taxpayers millions. Do you share his hostility to independent oversight?

Why is DAS auditing records of projects only from 2018 when federal investigators have subpoenaed state records from January 1, 2022?

On NBC Connecticut’s Face the Facts this weekend, Commissioner Gilman told reporter Mike Hydeck that the governor raised concerns about moving the school construction grant program to OPM. How and to whom did he raise those concerns? Was it a mistake for Governor Lamont to allow the program to move to OPM with Mr. Diamantis?

How many people at DAS typically work on a school construction project?

Were DAS employees afraid to cross Mr. Diamantis?

What happens to portable classrooms when a town is done using them?

Have any DAS employees been interviewed by federal criminal investigators? Have any received a subpoena to appear before the grand jury empaneled to investigate corruption in the Lamont administration? 

What will you do if any DAS employee refuses to cooperate with federal criminal investigators?

How long did it take for DAS to provide investigators information sought in the federal subpoena? How long will it take DAS to provide that information to anyone seeking it under the Freedom of Information Act? 

How long does it take DAS to respond to a request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act? What have you done so far to improve DAS’s response to FOI requests?

Michelle Gilman, the Acting Commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) and the state’s former deputy chief operating officer, is scheduled for a confirmation hearing Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. on her nomination to lead DAS. It is an unprecedented time of scandal at the agency as a federal criminal investigation examining the state’s school construction grants program continues.

The hearing before Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee will provide legislators an opportunity to ask what Gilman knows about the investigation and what she will do to repair the agency’s deteriorating reputation.

Here are questions members might consider asking:

Former budget secretary Melissa McCaw complained of her treatment by members of Governor Lamont’s staff. Were you aware of that treatment? Did you say something when you saw something? If so, what and to whom?

Were you aware of the way other people were treated by Governor Lamont’s top advisers? Did you say something when you saw something?

In January 2019, Tolland officials learned D’Amato Construction of Bristol was going to be the contractor on the $46 million Birch Grove Primary School construction project. How did that happen? Who in addition to Kostantinos Diamantis was involved in that decision?

Was it a mistake for Josh Geballe to serve as both commissioner of DAS and the state’s chief operating officer at the same time?

You served as deputy chief operating officer in Governor Lamont’s office. Did Mr. Geballe fail to supervise adequately the school construction program before he agreed to transfer it to the Office of Policy and Management? 

The agreement to transfer school construction to OPM along with Mr. Diamantis highlighted efficiencies and synergies that would benefit the program. What were those?

Was Governor Lamont mistaken to allow the transfer of school construction program from DAS to OPM in 2019? Should the legislature have enacted a change in the law before the transfer occurred? 

Have any DAS employees been interviewed by federal criminal investigators? Have any received a subpoena to appear before the grand jury empaneled to investigate corruption in the Lamont administration? 

What will you do if any DAS employee refuses to cooperate with federal criminal investigators?

How long did it take for DAS to provide investigators information sought in the federal subpoena? How long will it take DAS to provide that information to anyone seeking it under the Freedom of Information Act? 

How long does it take DAS to respond to a request for documents under the Freedom of Information Act? What have you done so far to improve DAS’s response to FOI requests?

What is the cost in public trust of DAS’s slow response to requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act? 

On January 19, 2019, two members of the DAS staff met with Tolland officials six days after outgoing Commissioner Currey authorized the waiving of competitive bidding in the construction of the Birch Grove Primary School. Two principals of D’Amato Construction also attended that meeting. Who invited them? Why were Tolland officials told D’Amato was their construction company? 

If the federal criminal investigation determines that public money was paid to contractors as part of an illegal contact steering scheme, what will you do to recover those funds?

In August of 2010, then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a report saying that Ms. Bysiewicz’s office maintained an “inappropriate” database with 36,000 names in it containing personal information about citizens, including their race and religion. The report said there was a “reasonable perception”that the database, funded by the taxpayers, was developed “for political campaign purposes.”

You were then-Secretary of the State’s chief of staff during the period covered by the attorney general’s report. What was your role in developing, maintaining, and utilizing this database?

The attorney general’s report in 2010 named you as one of three employees who had a computer password that was used in 2007 to improperly upload 6,700 names from Ms. Bysiewicz’s 2006 re-election campaign database into her state office database.  Did you upload the names? What knowledge do you have about how those names were uploaded into the database?

Do you believe that the taxpayer funded database in the Secretary of the State’s Office was proper? 

As DAS commissioner, what would you do if you found out that such a database was being maintained in the Department of Administrative Services?

Do you have any regrets about your handling of that political database in the Secretary of the State’s office?

Posted February 28, 2022.

The compressed timeline on the replacement of the Birch Gove Primary School continues to include a critical mystery. On January 16, 2019, Tolland’s superintendent of schools requested that competitive bidding be waived on the project. Commissioner Melody Currey granted that request two days later.

Six days after bidding was waived, a planning meeting on the project was held at DAS. It included four Tolland officials; Brian Kellogg, of JCJ Architects; Kosta Diamantis and Bob Celmer, both of DAS’s school construction office; and Ed and Tony D’Amato, of D’Amato Construction. D’Amato Construction had never built a school and, according to its website, had not constructed over overseen the construction on the scale of the $46 million Tolland project. The cost grew as “unsuitable soils” were discovered on the construction site and the price of portable classrooms skyrocket from $1 million to $9 million.

Tolland officials did not bring D’Amato into the project. Tolland superintendent Walter Willett claimed earlier this month that Diamanits threatened the course of the project if Tolland officials did not use D’Amato and Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP). CAP is the construction oversight company that hired Diamantis’s daughter while she worked as a full-time state employee. It is owned by Antonietta Roy.

The Birch Grove Primary School project appears to be included in the federal criminal investigation of contract steering in the Lamont administration.

Posted February 28, 2022.

Office of Policy and Management (OPM) Secretary Melissa McCaw’s departure from the Lamont administration is imminent, Daily Ructions has learned. McCaw has held the job of budget chief since Lamont took office in January 2019. McCaw previously served as Hartford’s finance director. She leaves under fraught circumstances of a federal criminal investigation of two programs she oversaw in her agency and her charges of abuse by Lamont’s inner circle.

The Middletown resident made a serious error when she insisted that Kostostinos Diamantis be appointed as her deputy budget director and–in what may turn out to be a destructive decision for Lamont himself–insisted he be allowed to bring his school construction portfolio with him from the Department of Administrative Services (DAS). At least one close adviser to Lamont raised serious and specific objections to the appointment of Diamantis to a position in the heart of the administration, directly beneath McCaw in chain of command. No one would listen. The school construction program, the State Pier project in New London, and Diamantis are the focus of a federal criminal investigation. Diamantis has denied any wrongdoing.

Diamantis left both his state jobs at the end of October 2021, weeks after I revealed in my Hartford Courant that Chief State’s Attorney Richard Collangelo had hired Diamantis’s daughter as a $99,000 a year executive assistant. Diamantis claimed he was the target of Lamont’s inner circle because he defended McCaw against attacks from the governor’s office.

As revelations of alleged corruption in the school construction continue, it has become clear that McCaw failed in her fundamental responsibility to supervise Diamantis in any meaningful way.

McCaw provided an effusive welcome to Diamantis in an email to OPM employees in 2019:

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis as Deputy Secretary for the Office of Policy and Management.

Kosta brings a unique and diverse background and skillset to his position as Deputy Secretary, with over 30 years of experience combined in the public and private sectors; practicing law, serving in the state legislature, and most recently, working at the Department of Administrative Services. Throughout these experiences, he has developed a deep understanding of the legal, legislative, policy, financial, and operational functions of state government and his role in strategic negotiations makes him uniquely qualified to support me and the Office of Policy and Management.

“Uniquely qualified” may take on a new meaning as targets of the school construction corruption investigation begin to enter into pleas as the investigation begins to reap its harvest in public.

Published February 24, 2022.

The growing federal school construction corruption scandal of the Lamont administration appears to have expanded to Hartford. A grand jury is expected to hear testimony next week on the financial details of the $149 million Bulkeley High School renovation project.

Federal investigators have been seeking documents from Hartford officials. Their interest appears to have intensified recently. Hartford officials hired Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP) as an owner representative on the Bulkeley project. CAP, owned by Antonietta Roy, was expected to be paid close to $2 million in fees while sharing oversight responsibilities with another firm. Hartford receives reimbursement of 95% of its school construction costs from the state. State officials informed Hartford last month that it would no longer reimburse it for CAP charges. The city then terminated its generous arrangement with CAP.

Roy appears to have been a favorite of former school construction division head and deputy budget director Kostantinos Diamantis, who left state government in late October. Tolland officials disclosed earlier this month that Diamantis had told them in 2019 that their Birch Grove Primary School construction project would be in jeopardy if they did not hire CAP and D’Amato Construction, a Bristol company that had never built a school before. D’Amato became the lead construction company on the $46 million project and CAP made $530,000 for duties that the town had previously performed itself.

Roy hired Anastasia Diamantis, Kostantinos Diamantis’s daughter, at CAP while Ms. Diamantis continued to work full-time in a state job.

The investigation continues.

Published February 24, 2022.

State Democrats are in in a right royal twist over Republican Bob Stefanowski appearing serious about his pledge to spend $10 million on his campaign to unseat Governor Ned Lamont. That sure is a lot of money for Stefanowski to “dump” into his campaign, they geschrei in a campaign contribution solicition. An independent expenditure committee with $500,000 has also provided grist for a sky-is-falling appeal.

It is a lot of money for almost everyone on the planet—except Lamont. In a world with seven billion people, Lamont is wealthier than almost all of them. Few have spent nearly $50 million of their fourth generation fortune on political campaigns, going 1 for 3, so far. Should Lamont continue his re-election campaign in the teeth of a growing corruption scandal born of his neglect, the Greenwich Democrat will soon cross the $50 million mark, making Stefanowski look like he may have trouble competing in advertising points if regretful defendants begin appearing in court to enter guilty pleas.

Campaign spending ought to be a no-go zone for state Democrats this year. If they need more than a ruction to understand why, we commend their attention to celebrated historian Ron Chernow’s first book, The House of Morgan. Even the most blinkered partisan mouthpiece shrink from defending Thomas Lamont, founder of the family fortune, and his chilling role, as what Chernow calls, “an accomplice of Benito Mussolini.” It is a dispiriting chronicle of the wealthy free financing the slaughter of innocents as the world entered a dark valley of misery.

Posted February 23, 2023.