New Haven Independent

Alderman Perez introduced the sweeping reform bill in December, 2005, response to the corruption scandals that drove Gov. John Rowland from office as well as local disputes involving the city’s budget director. Click here to read Perez’s original proposal.

The month after Perez introduced his proposal, he lost his position as Board of Aldermen president to Carl Goldfield, who ran partly on a clean-government platform. Since then, the proposal was stuck in committee; aldermen wouldn’t even schedule a hearing on it to move it forward until an Independent article shamed the board into holding a hearing on it.

The Joint Aldermanic Affairs/Legislation Committee last met on Oct. 23 to discuss the proposal. At the meeting, aldermen felt that too many unanswered questions remained to move the proposal to the full board. Goldfield, for instance, expressed “mixed feelings” about Perez’s “revolving-door” proposal. It affects city officials and aldermen who leave office. They would have to wait a year before going to work for or lobbying the city on behalf of companies or other government agencies whose work they previously oversaw in office. (Such a rule, for instance, would have prevented top City Hall officials Karen DuBois-Walton and Sheiila Allen Bell from having taken new jobs with the housing authority.)

Click here to read about that October meeting and the specific issues under debate.

So they agreed a subcommittee should be formed to consider the bill further and report back to committee. The mayor’s office and Board of Aldermen were to appoint the subcommittee members.

Fast forward to January 2007. Well, not so fast forward.

It took until now for the mayor’s office and the Board of Aldermen to name members of the subcommittee. Goldfield and city Corporation Counsel Tom Ude said Monday that the subcommittee is now fully named. Its members include: Ude; Aldermen Perez, Goldfield and McCormack; and mayoral aides Che Dawson and Rob Smuts.

When is its first meeting?

“It hasn’t been scheduled yet,” Tom Ude said. “There are a lot of things going on around the city. I think it has been moving forward.”

Goldfield’s Version

Board of Aldermen President Goldfield (pictured) agreed with Ude that progress is in the offing.

“The working group has all been appointed. They should all be beginning work, I think they should move as quickly as possible now,” Goldfield said Monday.

Why haven’t they moved quickly up until now?

“No one was pushing it.”

Why didn’t he?

“I am always interested in seeing ethics reform move quickly. I have a lot on my plate. No one was pushing me on this.”

Jorge Perez said when it was taking months for a “working group” to be formed, he wrote a letter asking why. He sent the letter to the two alderwomen who chair the committees considering the bills, Liz McCormack and Maria Reyes Rivera. And he sent copies of the letter to Goldfield and the mayor’s office.

Click here to read that letter.

Click here to read a letter sent to the mayor’s office Monday seeking its appointees.

“But I’m happy it finally got done, and it’s going to move forward,” Perez said Monday.

Goldfield disagreed with Perez’s claim that the episode reveals a lack of “spine” or stomach for ethics among leading politicians in the city.

“The vast majority of what Jorge proposed was not controversial. There were a couple of items that people just wanted to have more time to take a look at,” Goldfield said. “It wasn’t a question of a lack of stomach. People felt most of these reforms are good and should be passed.”

Mayor DeStefano added his own dose of optimism when asked Monday about the progress of ethics reform: “I think everybody’s ready to see it through and look at it. I’m glad to see everybody’s appointments are made. I’m glad it’s there and ready to go.”