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.

The state contracting scandal continues to engulf Governor Ned Lamont’s administration. Lamont’s strategy appears to be a series of shrugs and dismissals of each new revelation. We know that federal criminal investigators are casting a wide net to gather evidence on how and why state contracts for construction, demolition and hazardous abatement were steered to favored businesses.

 A corruption scandal of this reach always touches more than the central figures. It may ensnare the culpable and the innocent. Daily Ructions offered advice for surviving a scandal on February 6th. Recent events prompt more. 

As day follows night, home improvements are a constant in Connecticut corruption scandals. They are closing in on you if you see any of the following on a subpoena: kitchen, basement, estimates, contracts, and receipts.

If you failed to obtain building permits for home improvements, do not slither into your local town hall now to apply for them while explaining you forgot all about the application and the fees in the rush of construction.

If investigators start poking around a delightful Farmington restaurant for records and recollections of who paid for meals there with contractors, start hunting for receipts and ethics disclosures.

As you assess your situation with the assistance of competent counsel, learn what a proffer is. Criminal defense lawyers refer to it as a Queen for a Day Letter. Learn more about it here. 

Read documents. Governor Lamont continues to appear hopelessly muddled as he struggles to explain why he knew nothing and saw nothing, absolutely nothing, about the scandal that is staining his administration. The Twardy report is 42 pages of narrative. The sorry tale flows in the telling, even with some omissions. A document compiled in the summer of 2020  by building trades unions association and given to Lamont’s office is two and a half pages. In his befuddled explanation of why he did not see the document, Lamont said last week that the union representatives wanted most to talk about project labor agreements, PLAs. They never got to warnings about Kostaninos Diamantis’s abuse of the school construction grants program. The Yale business school graduate seemed not to remember that the union complaints about PLAs centered solely on Diamantis. It’s right there in that concise memo. Read the documents before commenting on them with misplaced confidence.

If an element of your defense is that you have been mistreated by the powerful, you’d better not have berated, embarrassed or made subordinates cry. If you required those who worked for to get your coffee or lunch, your bid for victimhood will be undermined. A directive to deliver documents to the boss at home is in no public employee’s job description.

Criminal investigations and the subsequent prosecutions can disrupt domestic harmony. Understand the complexities of the doctrines of spousal communications and spousal privilege in criminal prosecutions. As an example of its complexities, the smartest lawyer I know pointed out that it is intended to protect the sanctity of marriage–where it has not already been shredded by the acts of one or both spouses.

If you are sure you deserve to keep or be reinstated to your state job, insist the state labor panel hearing your claim open your hearing to the public. If you are confident of your case, let in the light. 

It is imprudent to declare how talented and accomplished you are while also claiming you saw nothing, you knew nothing. Prosecutors are not persuaded by people who insist they are smart about everything but what went on in front of them.

Published on February 22, 2022.

Federal criminal investigators have discussed state school construction issues with Hartford officials, Daily Ructions has learned.

The Courant’s Ed Mahony reported Thursday that Hartford fired Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP) last month–after learning that the state would no longer reimburse costs of CAP’s contract with Hartford. CAP was providing construction oversight services to Hartford in its extensive $149 million renovation project.

Federal subpoenas suggest that Kostantinos Diamantis, a former top adviser to Governor Ned Lamont, is one focus of the investigation. Diamantis, a former Democratic legislator from Bristol, was Lamont’s deputy budget director while also continuing to head the state’s school construction program. Diamantis has denied any wrongdoing.

Tolland’s superintendent of school’s said last week that Diamantis required the town to hire CAP, which is owned by Antonietta Roy, also formerly of Bristol, in the construction of the Birch Grove Primary School. The state approved $530,000 in payments to CAP by the town for work on the project.

Hartford officials have pledged to cooperate with federal investigators. The Bulkeley High School project was featured on CAP’s website Thursday.

The story continues.

Published February 18, 2022.

A measure of the failure of the state’s financial oversight in West Haven. You remember West Haven. When last heard from, former state Representative Michael DiMassa, a city employee, was charged with embezzling $635,000 of Covid relief funds from the coffers of the city that has been under the state’s financial control since 2017.

Monday night’s city council meeting revealed abuse of the city’s credit card. The use of the city’s credit card far exceeds the receipts in the municipal government’s possession.

How bad is it? The state’s budget director, Melissa McCaw, had to get out her sickbed (she’s suffering from COVID and missed a budget presentation today) to address the latest crisis in West Haven. After learning of the council meeting revelations, McCaw told OPM’s municipal oversight board, ” Immediate action in West Haven has been taken at the direction of OPM. A follow-up correspondence from me to the MARB will be forthcoming to update you accordingly. Please stay tuned.”

The long Monday meeting is preserved on YouTube. February 16, 2022   9:17 am   Comments Off on West Haven Again. Credit Card Abuse and More Handwringing.

The 2020 Warning Of Abuse in the State’s School Construction Program.

by Kevin Rennie

By the summer of 2020, contractors and labor organizations were alarmed at abuses they were witnessing in the state’s school construction program. They were frustrated by “a shroud of secrecy over this Trade Labor List or State Contract List.” They had specific concerns and solutions. The association leaders were fluent in the substance of state construction contracting issues and, remarkably, unafraid to criticize two of Governor Ned Lamont’s most favored advisers, Kostantinos Diamantis and Josh Geballe.

The document above was prepared for the July 22, 2020, meeting with Lamont. It subsequently made its way to other state agencies. The document confirms that Governor Lamont was warned that he needed to make changes in his administration. In November 2019, the school construction program was moved from the Department of Administrative Services, where a state statute required it to be administered, to the Office of Policy Management. Diamantis, who had been running school construction, became deputy budget director that month at McCaw’s ferocious insistence. Lamont married that terrible decision to a worse one: allowing Diamantis to take school construction with him to OPM. Anyone familiar with state government at that time knew that Secretary Melissa McCaw was the person in the Lamont administration least likely to subject her close friend Diamantis to rigorous supervision.

Lamont failed to act and now faces the humiliation of a federal criminal investigation into the highest levels of his administration.

The governor can continue to avert his gaze, claim he knew nothing, and hope he gets to Election Day before lawyers the U.S. Attorney’s office begin marching defendants before judges to enter guilty pleas. There is another way. Lamont can tell the public what he knew and what he did about the warnings brave people delivered to his administration. As bad as knowing and doing nothing was, the governor not knowing that a rising tide of corruption was flooding his administration while people around him were eyeing the lifeboats is as alarming.

Published February 15, 2022.

February 15, 2022   6:39 am   Comments Off on The 2020 Warning Of Abuse in the State’s School Construction Program.

A Valentine From Ella Fitzgerald and Something Big.

by Kevin Rennie

February 14, 2022   2:48 pm   Comments Off on A Valentine From Ella Fitzgerald and Something Big.

Supreme Court to Consider Suspension or Removal of Judge Alice Bruno.

by Kevin Rennie

February 11, 2022   10:37 am   Comments Off on Supreme Court to Consider Suspension or Removal of Judge Alice Bruno.