Parole Wants Out Of ​“Sick Building”

Parole officers are calling on the state Department of Administrative Services (DAS) to move them out of a New Haven office building that they claim is making them sick.

Between 18 and 20 parole officers and administrative employees work out of a leased space in an office building at 50 Fitch St. And some have had enough of the ​“sick building” that they say is plagued with water leaks that lead to toxic mold.

The office space is leased by the DAS on behalf of the Department of Corrections as a parole office. The building appears to be owned by Edward Roubeni of Great Neck, N.Y., who could not be reached for comment.

Veteran Parole Officer Paula Curry said during a press event Monday with fellow members of AFSCME Council 4 Monday in the 50 Fitch St. parking lot that officers have been sounding the alarm about the condition of the building for a number of years.

Four years ago the DOC was cited by the state Department of Labor’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CONN-OSHA) for failing to maintain a clean and sanitary workplace.

It was cited again in July and hit with a $1,000 fine after a large patch of black mold was found behind a file cabinet, Curry said.

“The landlord sent workers who were not qualified to remove mold,” she recalled. ​“The original spot of mold has been removed but there is more mold in the ceiling and the walls.”

Not only are their offices riddled with mold, Curry said, but now one of the staff bathrooms is not functioning because of a toilet leak that produced a second mold sighting. She said the office where the original patch of mold was found remains uninhabitable, and has been that way for so long that the protective plastic and tape meant to keep people out until it is fully remediated is starting to fall down.

And Curry said all of it is causing health problems such as chronic sinus infection and bronchitis linked by their doctors to toxic mold.

“We all have filed workers compensation claims against the state,” she said.

Larry Dorman of AFSCME Council 4 said that the parole officers who work in the office deserve to have their concerns taken seriously by the state.

“What our parole officers do is really vital to public safety and law enforcement and the problems at this building have been evident for years and years and years,” he said. ​“Workers deserve better and we want the Department of Administrative Services, which is in charge of leasing this space, to help us get out of this situation.”

Jeffrey Beckham, DAS staff counsel and director of communications, said that the department is looking for an office to relocate the parole office, but it’s a challenge.

“Since the spring we have been vetting other locations,” he said. ​“We have an RFP [request for proposals] out … but it’s a challenging office to try to locate space that meets the specifications that we have to have for that type of facility. Sometimes when folks find out what we’re trying to lease the property for, they may not be interested to have that activity there.”

Curry said a space in North Haven fell through when DAS had previously tried to move the office once the other tenants in a building in that town got wind that it was a parole office moving in.

Beckham said he had no timeline on how soon a new location might be decided upon, if it would stay in New Haven, and when people would move from the 50 Fitch St. location. He said steps are being taken by the DOC and the landlord to mitigate the mold and address some of the other concerns.

“We requested that they move us,” said AFSCME Local 1565 Parole Representative Mark Sarsfield. ​“We have regularly through the labor management meetings for the last couple of years requested that they move us. Somebody is always putting a band-aid on something, but every day there seems to be another problem in the office. It’s gone on for far too long. And we would just hope that the same energy and effort is put into taking care of the parole officers and everybody else that goes in an out of those doors that they do with streamlining the process for getting offenders out of jail with the Second Chance Society. That seems to be the focus on everything, but we have to be prepared to work with these people and I don’t think its asking too much to work in a clean, healthy environment.”

Sarsfield said that given that finding a new location could take a year or more, the union has asked the state to do something to accommodate the officers right now to get them out of their current space.

Curry said in the interim, the parole officers and other employees in the office, independently of the union, have reached out to local attorney Robert Kowalczyk for possible legal action against the building owner.