From The Hartford Courant, 6/23/04:
http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-impeach0623.artjun23,1,3621984.story?coll=hc-headlines-topnews
The Bid-Rigging Issue
Panel's Report Will Say Rowland Ignored Evidence Of Staff Impropriety
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer
The final report of the House impeachment committee will assert that
Gov. John G. Rowland turned a blind eye to evidence suggesting
bid-rigging in the construction of the Connecticut Juvenile Training
School, legislators said Tuesday.
The impeachment panel suspended its hearings Monday morning upon
learning of Rowland's intention to resign, but its report will
summarize evidence that was to have been presented Monday and Tuesday.
The evidence includes information that Rowland was aware that his
co-chief of staff, Peter N. Ellef, worked improperly with William A.
Tomasso, whose construction company built the much-criticized
facility, legislators said.
Tomasso was allowed to accompany a state delegation in November 1998
that viewed a facility in Marion, Ohio, which became a model for the
$57 million training school later built in Middletown.
The trip gave him an inside track in obtaining the contract,
legislators said.
The Courant reported Tomasso's presence on the Ohio trip, including
the fact that he later hired the Ohio project's architect, in April
2003.
What's new, legislators said, was information showing that Rowland was
aware of the contractor's inside knowledge before the deal was
finalized.
"The governor became aware of it while they were there" in Ohio, said
Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, a committee member.
"He never did anything about it. There was bid-rigging going on."
"There was information to suggest that at least Rowland knew that
Ellef was out there in Ohio with Tomasso," said Rep. John Wayne Fox,
D-Stamford, the impeachment panel co-chairman.
"Even though he was annoyed, he did not stop it."
Lawrence E. Alibozek, who was Ellef's deputy, pleaded guilty last year
to corruption charges in connection with steering work to Tomasso's
companies.
Ellef has been told he is a target of the continuing federal
investigation into bid-rigging during the Rowland administration, and
documents relating to Tomasso contracts have been subpoenaed from the
governor's office and state agencies.
William F. Dow III, the governor's personal lawyer, declined to
comment Tuesday on the assertions that Rowland was aware that the
training-school deal may have been tilted toward Tomasso's company,
TBI Construction.
Lawlor said the Rowland administration bypassed normal design and
bidding procedures.
The result, he said, is a flawed facility whose operational costs are
among the highest in the country.
"The evidence that would have been presented yesterday clearly would
have shown the consequences of this apparently corrupt deal," Lawlor
said Tuesday.
Rowland, 47, a three-term Republican governor, announced his
resignation Monday, effective July 1.
But he has not submitted a resignation letter, a spokesman for the
secretary of the state's office said Tuesday.
In the state Capitol's Old Judiciary Room, the scene of impeachment
hearings for the past two weeks, workers dismantled the audio-visual
equipment and computers used to present documentary evidence.
The impeachment committee's special counsel, Steven F. Reich, and his
staff turned their attention to drafting a final report the committee
will present to the House of Representatives.
It will not say whether the evidence was sufficient to impeach
Rowland, legislators said.
Rep. Arthur J. O'Neill, R-Southbury, the other co-chairman of the
bipartisan committee, said the panel has no reason to press on to a
conclusion about the evidence, since Rowland has resigned.
"The whole matter at this point is moot," O'Neill said.
Instead, the report will summarize all the evidence that the
committee's investigators had presented - or were intending to
present, Fox said.
The report is tentatively slated for release on July 1 at 12:01 p.m.,
the moment that Rowland ceases to be governor.
"We don't want to do this report until the governor leaves office,"
O'Neill said.
"We just want to make sure it's all over."
O'Neill was circumspect when asked about Rowland's resignation speech,
in which he offered no apology or explanations.
He observed that Rowland apologized during a televised speech in
January - a gesture that the public found unsatisfying, as measured by
the polls.
"I think the words they were waiting to hear from him were `good
bye,'" O'Neill said.
"And those words were in that speech."
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Well, ya know ole Anal Cyst has got so much ground to cover he can't
mention *everything*, right?
Harry
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