A pantomime of democracy at Metropolitan District Commission
The Metropolitan District Commission was at it again Wednesday. The state’s preeminent hackerama was in full sail as it elected its chairperson and vice chairperson. What a pantomime of democracy is this agency that provides water and sewer services to eight towns in Greater Hartford and water to parts of four more.
An embarrassing controversy last year involved the alleged payment of legal fees to a longtime pal of William DiBella, the chairperson of the MDC for more than two decades. When the issue arose, DiBella recused himself from the matter because the legal fees had been paid to a lawyer who also does work for the Old Saybrook and Hartford Democrat. As the legal fees investigation became a more serious threat to his position DiBella renounced his recusal.
When the astonishing investigation report was completed, DiBella’s allies voted to table it with no action.
DiBella decided not seek another term as MDC’s chairperson but will carry on as the most powerful number two in the agency’s history. East Hartford Democrat Donald Currey was chosen without opposition to become the chairperson.
Currey was nominated by longtime MDC board member
Pasquale “Bud” Salemi, whose son is the MDC’s spokesman. Salemi spent a considerable portion of his nominating speech reciting the decades he and Currey labored in the fields of East Hartford Democratic politics, assuring many commissioners they were electing a safe pair of hands. Nothing will change. There will be no trouble.
To emphasize that the MDC will remain a closed shop fueled by favors, Wethersfield Democrat Andrew Adil seconded Currey’s nomination. Last fall, Adil sent an extraordinary message to the CEO of the MDC, Scott Jellison. Adil was furious at the outrageous, yes, outrageous, treatment of his son Austin, a seasonal employee of the MDC. “I don’t believe the MDC should do business this way,” Adil mewled.
The summer had come to an end and so had young Adil’s seasonal job. How dare Jellison end the diligent — according to his father — Austin’s employment with only a few days’ notice.
Oh, the humanity.
Jellison, in a stinging and careful reply, reminded Adil that the employment agency that had hired his son for the cushy job at an MDC reservoir had been engaged because young Mr.
Adil and some of his colleagues had previously sought unemployment benefits when their direct seasonal employment with the MDC ended. Curiously, or maybe not, the agency did not contest the unemployment compensation claims.
In almost every public agency in Connecticut, a board member would know better than to intervene in such a heavy handed, slightly odd manner. Not at the MDC. Adil continues as an appointment of Gov. Ned Lamont, who suffers from an aversion to confronting matters of public integrity that require action.
Adil, like Salemi, delivered a message in his comments for Currey: No one will be penalized by trying to strong-arm the MDC’s professional managers into acting to provide a financial benefit to a board member, their family or a favored friend.
Then DiBella was nominated to serve as vice chairperson. West Hartford Republican Allen Hoffman was also nominated. Another revealing moment
followed. The commission elected DiBella by a voice vote. The traditional roll call when two people are vying for the same office was abandoned. The secretary of the meeting scrambled to determine who raised their voice for whom. But there was no roll call because they likely did not want to state their support for DiBella in public, a reminder that tools are rarely brave.
The Democrats, members of a party that pays close attention to identity politics, have overwhelming control of the board that elected two white men of advanced age to run the agency.
DiBella displaces a woman, Maureen Magnan, a West Hartford Democrat, because West
Hartford has been the center of the rebellion. Any review of these discreditable events requires recognition of an antidote to this foolishness. West Hartford Mayor Shari Cantor has been an undaunted advocate of reform. Muttered foul insults will not dissuade her. Cantor, who has never appeared to be a natural dissident, has risen to the moment and appears committed to continuing her righteous fight.
The two men elected Wednesday were integral players in the MDC’s legacy of shame. Currey and DiBella were among the many who ignored the ordeal of residents of Hartford’s North End neighborhood. Homeowners and others suffered through years of foul sewage flooding their homes and businesses during and after major storms.
Long-suffering residents successfully lobbied federal officials to intervene. Only then was the MDC embarrassed into taking part in solving a horrific threat to public health that it had ignored. And still, nothing will change at the MDC. No wonder they did not dare to call the roll of DiBella supporters.
Kevin F. Rennie, of South Windsor, is a lawyer and a former Republican state senator and representative.