Jacob Cohn Photo
From left to right: Board members Anna Mariotti and Richard Abbatiello; campaign representatives Daniel Kedem, Richard Epstein and Gerald Weiner; board administrator Robert Wechsler; and board members Stephen Kovel and Calep Kleppner.
Mayor John DeStefano’s campaign may have broken campaign-finance rules, but the commission in charge of the matter has decided not to do anything about it.
After a series of testy exchanges, the governing board of New Haven Democracy Fund Monday night failed to pass a motion to set up an investigation into the improper filing of DeStefano’s 2009 reelection campaign’s finance reports, in effect accepting the argument that the campaign had provided an explanation and that there was no need for further discussion.
With board member Dennis Curtis absent, the remaining four members deadlocked in a 2 – 2 vote on a motion to launch an investigation. So the motion failed. The motion by Vice-Chair Anna Mariotti also won the vote of chairman Caleb Kleppner; board members Stephen Kovel and Richard Abbatiello voted against it.
Advocates of an investigation argued that that the campaign had broken campaign finance laws by filing reports late. If the board failed to investigate the campaign, Kleppner suggested, it would set a precedent allowing other candidates to flout the rules.
“I think the only way we can know [what happened] is to investigate,” Kleppner said.
Kovel and Abbatiello were not convinced. Kovel said he did not see evidence of any intentional wrongdoing. Abbatiello agreed, saying that the issue seemed to be a simple mistake, for which the campaign had already paid a fine, and that an investigation was unnecessary.
“I think we got an explanation, and I’m satisfied with the explanation,” Abbatiello said.
The Democracy Fund — created and appointed by DeStefano himself — offers public money to mayoral candidates who abide by fund-raising and spending limits. The idea is to limit the influence of special-interest money in elections and enable less wealthy or politically connected people to seek office. DeStefano participated in the process the last two elections. After the Fund started criticizing his campaign’s reporting, he decided to opt out of the process in this year’s campaign; three of his potential opponents in this year’s campaign have filed papers to participate in the fund. (A fourth, Clifton Graves, has decided not to participate.)
The controversy arose because the 2009 DeStefano campaign, which was receiving public financing, filed financial information with the Democracy Fund in March 2011, well after the Jan. 31, 2010, deadline. The board had previously fined the campaign $500 for failing to file on time.
DeStefano campaign reps Danny Kedem, Richard Epstein and Gerald Weiner.
Representatives of the DeStefano campaign said that there was a simple explanation for the problem. The campaign sent out several checks worth over $500 refunding people who had over-paid, according to 2009 campaign treasurer Richard Epstein, but the recipients didn’t cash them.
According to Epstein, the campaign responded by filing paperwork showing that it was running a deficit, which by law would allow DeStefano to continue raising money to pay off his debts. However, according to the campaign, the papers showed an amount that would actually have constituted a surplus, since the checks had not yet been cashed and the money was still technically in the hands of the campaign.
Epstein added that the campaign had consulted with the state’s Elections Enforcement Commission and determined that its actions were legal, since there had been a “good-faith effort” to terminate the campaign.
“Everything is available,” said Epstein’s attorney, Gerald Weiner. “You have all the information. These kinds of errors are really not considered worthy of investigation.”
Epstein claimed that the Democracy Fund had not even asked about the report until several months after it was due and that this was the campaign’s first hint that a problem existed.
“Better communication would have been better,” Epstein said. “I don’t disagree with that.”
DeStefano’s team firmly maintained that the campaign’s problems had been honest mistakes and that there was no evidence of any misuse of funds.
“Every penny was accounted for,” said Daniel Kedem, manager of DeStefano’s 2011 reelection campaign. (He just moved to town.)
Monday night’s meeting at City Hall turned tense at times, with Kleppner and Democracy Fund administrator Robert Wechsler openly deriding some of the campaign’s claims. Wechsler took issue with Kedem’s claim that he had previously tried to email Wechsler information on the checks causing the problem only to find that the correct page had failed to show up in his attachment, which had been converted to .pdf format from .xls.
“You’re saying things that aren’t true, and it’s a waste of our time,” Wechsler told Kedem.
Weiner then argued that the issue was one of “reporting,” not “misuse.” Kleppner countered that an investigation would allow substantive answers to the board’s questions to be found.
The mood had soured earlier in the proceedings when Kleppner said that the campaign could have claimed a deficit in the situation described by Epstein, even though the checks it had sent had not yet been cashed. Weiner called this a “blatant misstatement” and said that Kleppner’s personal opinion should not be taken as fact by the board.
After one heated argument, Abbatiello spoke out against the “animosity” being shown and said that the Democracy Fund board must continue to work together effectively.
“I want to work with my committee,” Abbatiello said. “I’ll probably go along with them [in the vote to investigate] because I come here all the time.”
But when the time came to vote, Abbatiello decided to split from Kleppner’s opinion — providing the decisive vote that closed the book on the filing issue.
Mayoral candidates who plan to participate in the Democracy Fund this year include former Alderman Tony Dawson, social worker and activist Jeffrey Kerekes and former Alderman Robert Lee. The Democracy Fund, formed in 2007, is run by a board made up of volunteers currently including two Democrats (Curtis and Mariotti), two unaffiliated members (Abbatiello and Kovel) and one Green (Kleppner).
What about the outrageous contracts given to individuals who do volunteer work for the Mayor when he runs for office?
I am glad to see that Kleppner and Mariotti pushed for investigation--should we not hold all of our elected officials and processes to the highest standards?
Citizens believe--right or wrong--that the Mayor does not do business in a clean or ethical manner. Our boards and commissions owe it to citizens to investigate any and all possible misdoings in full, and I am grateful that Mariotti and Kleppner are on the board.