Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Giuliano Vetos $10,000 Appropriation For Investigation

Mayor Giuliano has vetoed the $10,000 appropriation by the Common Council to hire an outside law firm or professional to conduct an investigation of the Mayor's Office, the Personnel Department, and the Water and Sewer Department. In a separate resolution the Council directed that the investigation be into the mayor's decision to move the director and assistant director of Water and Sewer from their offices on Berlin Street to offices within City Hall.

In his "Statement of Objection Accompanying Veto", the mayor laid out several technical reasons for his action. He wrote that this was not an investigation by the Council (which is authorized by the charter), but instead an investigation by a private entity. "The Common Council can no more delegate its power to investigate to an outside entity any more than it could delegate its power to adopt ordinances to an outside entity."

Giuliano also said that hiring an outside entity would be an unlawful attempt to circumvent public scrutiny, "It is also a requirement that an investigation pursuant to to Ch. III, 8 is a legal proceeding of the common Council, and, thus, subject to the Freedom of Information Act."

The Council has 10 days to override the mayor's veto. 8 votes are needed for such an override, votes that clearly exist because all 8 Democratic Council members supported the $10,000 appropriation.

The Council meets Thursday in a community session at Macdonough School, but the veto override is not on the currently available agenda.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://wesleyanargus.com/2009/09/15/middletown-mayoral-hopeful-dan-drew/

Interesting Drew Fact: why does he want to investigate the water and sewer when in 2009 he told the Wesleyan Argus that he knows it's bankrupt back in 2009??

A: Do you see any pre-existing difficulties that you will have to overcome when you take office?
DD: Major financial crisis is always going to be right there on the horizon. Giuliano claims experience for re-election, but he has achieved the height of fiscal irresponsibility. He increased taxes for residents all over town, more so than the three democratic mayors before him. Yet, Republicans keep suggesting that fiscally responsible means fiscally conservative. Not to mention, our city’s sewer department is in dire straits financially. If it were privately owned, it would declare bankruptcy. We don’t know where we’re going right now. We need to lay out a specific path so we can work on bringing in economic development.

Anonymous said...

how does prior knowledge of a problem mean that it should not be investigated? I don't get your logic anon.

Anonymous said...

Whats to investigate??? When you know money is missing as the books show- there is an issue- remove the those responsible-

Anonymous said...

What is there to investigate? Records are missing, money is unaccounted for, department in debt. Simple solution- fire the department head! No 10k investigation needed-