October 23, 2004
Inquiry Looks at Contracting and the Mayor of Stamford
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN, NY TIMES

LINK

STAMFORD, Conn., Oct. 22 - State prosecutors have requested extensive information from the city government here about contracts awarded by Mayor Dannel P. Malloy's administration and have conducted interviews as part of a municipal corruption inquiry.

According to people knowledgeable about the inquiry, state investigators are examining millions of dollars being spent on capital projects by the city's Board of Education. They have also raised questions about improvements made to the mayor's century-old house by private contractors.

Mayor Malloy, a Democrat who has run the city since 1995 and who has raised more than $1 million to run for governor in 2006, said he welcomed the inquiry and pledged the "complete cooperation" of his administration.

He said he would not describe the inquiry as an investigation.

"Certainly, that word has never been used by anyone else," he said in a phone interview on Friday evening. "They are looking at policies and procedures, requests for proposals and contracting, and we welcome that. We think we have great policies and procedures."

He said, however, that he understood that the state's new public integrity unit may have questions following news reports about city contracts awarded to people who have donated money to his gubernatorial campaign. "I'm a former prosecutor, and certainly understand why they'd want to do that," said Mr. Malloy, 49, who once worked in the Brooklyn district attorney's office.

Paul E. Murray, the deputy chief state's attorney for operations, declined to comment on the activities of the state's new public integrity unit. The unit focuses on public corruption, a problem that until recently was being tackled in Connecticut only by the federal authorities, who successfully prosecuted the mayors of Bridgeport and Waterbury and who are investigating the administration of former Gov. John G. Rowland.

According to The Associated Press, which first reported the state's interest in Stamford on Friday night, the first request for information from prosecutors came about six weeks ago.

Mr. Malloy said he could not recall whether the information request came before or after he asked the city's purchasing agent earlier this month to re-bid two contracts won by his political donors after Republicans in town complained about irregularities in the bidding processes.

One contract involved the city's nursing home, Smith House, which is managed by Haven Healthcare. Three days after the company submitted a bid in May for the business, a top company official held a fund-raiser that drew $31,550 for the mayor's campaign for governor.

The other contested contract concerned a cafeteria in the municipal building downtown. A proposal submitted by the current proprietor, the Patio Cafe, was the first choice of a selection panel. While negotiating, the city decided to waive $85,000 the proprietor had agreed to pay. The waiver came after he contributed to Mr. Malloy's campaign.

The donors have said there was no link between what they did for the mayor and what they got from the city. Mr. Malloy has said he had no involvement in purchasing decisions.

Republicans, seeing Mr. Malloy's successful fund-raising and mindful of his plans for higher office, are voicing suspicions.

Joseph Tarzia, the senior Republican on the Board of Finance and a critic of the mayor, said, "It's interesting that the mayor pulled the contracts on Haven Health and Patio Cafe immediately after he got this request from the authorities."

The mayor said he was unaware of any questions being raised about his house, a converted barn in the affluent Shippan part of town, within sight of the Long Island Sound.

In November 2001, The Norwalk Hour reported that the mayor acknowledged that "friends" had worked on his house. Among those described as helping with the effort were two city contractors, Antonio Vitti and Ron DiSette, as well as Robert McGrath, a fire and rescue captain who later was appointed chief.

Asked about the renovation on Friday, Mr. Malloy confirmed that all three did work on his house but said that any city work the contractors got was the result of competitive bidding. He also said that everyone has been paid.

"Everyone who worked on that house was paid for their services," he said. "Everyone."

September 27, 2004
Questions and Small Talk for the Mayor of Stamford
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN, NY TIMES

LINK

STAMFORD, Conn., Sept. 26 - In a state weary of corruption, and vigilant for any new signs of quid pro quo, Mayor Dannel P. Malloy of Stamford is walking a difficult line.

Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, has another year to go before his third term running Connecticut's fourth-largest city expires. Even so, he has been putting together the machinery - and money - to run for governor in November 2006.

That ambition has set him up for criticism. Republicans were quick to focus on his administration's handling of a nursing home contract, pointing out that the firm that was to be awarded the contract to run the city-owned home, Haven Healthcare, raised $31,550 for the Malloy campaign in May. Now the whispers in the halls of Stamford's government building center on, of all things, the tiny fourth-floor cafeteria concession.

Suspicion was rife that the administration wanted the contract to go to David Cingari, a caterer whose family has many personal ties to the mayor. So after the contract was awarded tentatively to the longtime cafeteria proprietor, George Moschos, Republican leaders demanded to know whether the $2,250 Mr. Moschos gave the Malloy campaign had any influence on the deal he negotiated.

The Republicans are especially troubled that in the weeks after he began contributing to the Malloy campaign on the advice of a relative active in Democratic politics, the city gave Mr. Moschos a five-year rent-free contract that was $85,000 lower than what he had bid.

In separate interviews this month, the mayor, the donor and the relative all said that there was no connection between the contributions and the contract, and that the contributions complied with all existing laws.

"I'm the mayor of the city of Stamford," Mr. Malloy said in an interview at his office, "and who operates the snack bar is not something I'd typically be involved in."

Those who know Stamford, his supporters say, would find any suggestion of influence-peddling implausible when the losing bid belonged to the Cingari family, who are longtime friends and financial supporters of the mayor.

Largely because of those ties, the mayor said, he formally separated himself from the selection process in August 2003, citing his "personal relationships with several of the companies who are bidding." He said he had learned about the lowering of Mr. Moschos's contract only recently, as city officials had been asked to respond to questions.

Although Republican leaders say they like Mr. Moschos and do not want to see him hurt, they also say the episode is emblematic of a larger pattern of municipal contracts going to the mayor's benefactors who now have a fresh opportunity to curry favor by underwriting his quest for higher office.

With their help, according to the latest filings, Mr. Malloy has raised more money than his two immediate rivals for the November 2006 gubernatorial race, Susan Bysiewicz, the secretary of the state, and Mayor John DeStefano Jr. of New Haven.

"Given that significant concessions were made after the bidding process was over, the bidding process was tainted and unfair," said James M. Rubino, a Republican on the City Board of Finance.

He said his board was not told outright that the contract they voted on this summer had been altered significantly after Mr. Moschos won the support of a six-member selection panel. "It does raise one's suspicions that the changes were related to campaign donations, and this is exactly why contractor money should be kept out of the decision-making process," he said.

Mr. Moschos is the man in the middle. "Trust me, no one helped me out on this," he said after the breakfast rush on a recent Monday, while refilling the coffee pots and checking on the Greek pastry. He said it was his willingness to invest in the business, financed by a second mortgage on his house, that clinched the contract, not his connections. As proof, he said, the two times he sought a meeting with the mayor to discuss the issue, he was rebuffed.

Mr. Moschos said he is easy prey for politicians needing money because of where he works. A Democrat, he said he gives to Republicans and Democrats alike, a vestige of his upbringing in Greece, where the wrong politics often cost one dearly. He said his gifts to the Malloy campaign were meant to support the party, not the mayor personally.

The contract is now final but for the final step, the mayor's signature.

Asked whether he would sign, the mayor said, "It hasn't reached my desk." He rarely withholds his signature, he said, but "if someone's unhappy, I'd take that into consideration."

For Mr. Moschos, the contract is vital to his ability to earn a living. He left Greece in 1970 with a culinary degree and has cooked in country clubs and has owned a Stamford restaurant. He became the cafeteria's proprietor in 1991 under a previous administration. The rent then was free so he could keep the prices down, and when the contract lapsed, the city had other priorities.

Last summer, the city decided to invite competition, a decision that Mr. Moschos described as "unbelievable" given that he had been working without a contract for years. "It was scary," he said, "and I didn't want to lose the business because I have kids in college." Mr. Moschos's proposal brimmed with testimonials vouching for his civic-mindedness.

His toughest competition came from David Cingari, a caterer whose family owns the Grade "A" supermarkets in town and whose political connections run deep. His brothers went to school with the mayor as children. He has catered events at the mayor's home, and their children play hockey together.

Mr. Moschos had also lost the cafeteria account at The Stamford Advocate to Mr. Cingari, and remembers begging his rival not to bid on the government center. The two men had a testy exchange when Mr. Cingari showed up in the cafeteria one day to count heads.

Mr. Cingari offered the city $31,700 in capital improvements in lieu of rent to run the place.

In December, the city's six-member selection panel unanimously chose the $135,000 package offered by Mr. Moschos.

But Mr. Moschos was not home free yet.

The city took six months to negotiate terms and prepare the contract for signing.

Though Mr. Moschos insists that one had nothing to do with the other, he began making campaign contributions to Mr. Malloy's gubernatorial campaign at the request of a Democrat who formerly was on the city's Board of Representatives, Peter C. Nanos, a cousin of Mr. Moschos's by marriage. "Do something to support the mayor," Mr. Moschos said he was told.

In an interview, Mr. Nanos said he did solicit contributions from Mr. Moschos for the mayor's campaign, but "did not give him any other advice." He also said the donations had no bearing on his cousin's contract.

Election filings show Mr. Moschos gave the Malloy campaign $250 on Feb. 17, $500 on March 19 and $1,500 on June 24. In Connecticut, individuals may give up to $2,500 per candidate for statewide office.

Meanwhile, city officials were giving Mr. Moschos a better deal than he had offered them to win the contract. In his formal proposal, he had promised the city $12,000 a year in rent and $75,000 in capital improvements for a total package worth $135,000. He also agreed to begin paying for his own electricity.

By early May, documents show, the city had waived the rent and reduced the required capital improvements to $50,000 in exchange for a promise that the work be finished the first year.

In an interview, Tim Curtin, the city's director of operations, said he authorized the new terms after a meeting on March 31, in which Mr. Moschos and his wife documented $23,500 in losses on the concession last year. "They wondered if there was anything I could do for them," Mr. Curtin said.

He said he was not aware at the time that Mr. Moschos had already given $750 to Mr. Malloy's campaign and said the contributions never influenced his decisions or the process.

Mr. Cingari, the caterer, said he had no hard feelings.

He, too, gave the mayor $500 this spring for his gubernatorial campaign, and agreed with the mayor that had he won the contract, "it would look worse."