Visit Annapolis lawsuit documents show details at heart of dispute

Ex-CEO spent $8K on lunches and happy hours with official

After a civil lawsuit between fired Visit Annapolis head Connie Del Signore and her former employer settled this month, court documents revealed she spent more than $8,000 of the nonprofit’s funds in a nine-month span on lunches and happy hours with John Astle, a former board chair.

Del Signore, who led the tourism agency for 17 years, was placed on administrative leave in April 2020 and fired by the board for misconduct discovered during an internal investigation that found she misused Visit Annapolis funds, drank at work, and permitted racist and sexist remarks in the office.

Her misconduct charges were debated in motions hearings but a judge never ruled on them. She has denied all allegations.

Del Signore and Historic Annapolis President Robert Clark entered into a confidential settlement before a judge could rule on Clark’s request for a summary judgment. Arbitration between Del Signore and the nonprofit was also confidentially settled this week.

The internal investigation revealed Del Signore — whose 2020 salary was $206,000 — charged Visit Annapolis more than $8,200 for lunches and happy hours she attended with Astle, a former Maryland state senator and delegate and Annapolis mayoral candidate, court documents show.

Astle led the Visit Annapolis board of directors from July 2019 until April 2020 when he resigned.

Del Signore also charged Visit Annapolis $794 for personal items, including dinner tabs with her sister, symphony tickets, an E-ZPass and a personal airport shuttle, according to the nonprofit’s internal investigation. Records show other nonprofit funds spent on Astle included $500 for subscriptions to The Capital, The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers and $1,200 on office furnishings.

Del Signore and Astle frequented upscale Annapolis restaurants and often dined at Osteria 177, Cafe Normandie and Harry Browne’s Restaurant three or four times a week. Del Signore brought other board members to

lunch, on occasion, court records show.

Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County is a nonprofit, membership-based organization that promotes Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay to travelers through marketing and sales campaigns. The organization collected about $3 million, mostly from county hotel taxes, during the 2020 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

Del Signore said during arbitration with Visit Annapolis that her lunches with Astle were reasonable business expenses because they were at “very public places” favorable to networking with business partners. Del Signore and Astle sometimes ordered wine or a martini with lunch, she said.

Del Signore also frequently attended happy hours with Astle at her “second office” at Harry Browne’s to network with senators, delegates and lobbyists, she told Tyler Patton, director of Visit Annapolis and a member of the organization’s Executive Committee, who led the internal investigation.

“John is somebody that I’ve worked with for years. He was able to assist us from going from a $1.2 million budget to a $4 million budget because of the hard work he did, and I had no problems feeling like this is a gentlemen that none of us would have jobs and the organization would have gone by the wideside had we not had this gentlemen in our corner,” Del Signore said during her deposition for Visit Annapolis’ arbitration.

Astle did not return a request for comment.

After her contract was terminated, Del Signore filed a lawsuit in July 2020 claiming she was a victim of a plot by Clark to get her fired. Clark served as the chair of Visit Annapolis’ board for two years between 2017 and 2019 and remained on the board after stepping down from that role.

Del Signore claimed he made “numerous attempts to use his influence” as chair to do things that would benefit him personally, such as asking her to direct money to Historic Annapolis projects and merging the two organizations.

In March 2020, Visit Annapolis Chief Financial Officer Dani Bottcher told Clark of complaints from other employees about Del Signore and Astle. Bottcher told attorneys for Clark during deposition in May that she was not comfortable taking the complaints to Astle because of his relationship with Del Signore, “So, for me, the next person in line would have been Robert Clark, who was the immediate past chair,” she reportedly said.

Bottcher was asked to resigned as acting director in October 2020 following a break-in at the office and a complaint that she created an unsafe working environment.

Employees complained Del Signore was “creating a hostile environment in the office after drinking with the chairman at lunch,” and failing to disclose to the board that she had hired her sister, among other violations of Visit Annapolis policy, court records show.

Del Signore sought $644,970 in contractual damages from Clark, whose interference in her business relationships led to her contract being terminated, she claimed.

Lawyers for Del Signore announced Wednesday the complaint against Clark had been settled this month.

“We are pleased that these matters have been resolved,” Visit Annapolis said in a statement. “We are deeply grateful for Ms. Del Signore’s extraordinary leadership over 17 years, which helped make Visit Annapolis one of the nation’s leading regional tourism agencies.”

In a statement, Del Signore said she was pleased the matter with Clark was resolved, adding she believed the organization she led for nearly two decades “is well positioned to have a bright and successful future serving the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County community.”

Reached by phone Friday, Clark declined to comment and directed questions to Visit Annapolis’ attorneys. He had previously told The Capital the complaint was “entirely without merit.”

In July 2020, Visit Annapolis announced plans to rewrite its bylaws and employee policies and to downsize and retrain its board. The Maryland General Assembly passed legislation this year that requires the tourism marketing group to make an annual report on how it uses its share of the local hotel tax, as well as open its books to the county auditor’s office.

In February, Kristen Pironis was named the new CEO and president.

Pironis did not return a request for comment.