The Derby Board of Aldermen will not launch an investigation into how the Valley Indy obtained a confidential report summarizing an investigation into a former city employee who allegedly mishandled cash and manipulated tax payer data in City Hall.
“I think we wasted enough time. Let’s move on,” Alderman Stephen Iacuone said, closing out the discussion on the matter during a meeting Thursday (Sept. 26).
The Valley Indy published the report within a story Aug. 23, under the principle that people who pay taxes have a right to know how their cash was allegedly mishandled by a public employee.
The three-page report, by Derby corporation counsel Joseph Coppola, summarized steps he took last year after learning former city tax clerk Katherine Kulhawik may have improperly voided cash tax payments within the city’s tax database.
The Board of Aldermen eventually allowed Kulhawik to sign a separation agreement in which the city promised not to file a formal complaint with police if Kulhawik agreed to resign, give up her rights to sue and pay the city $9,000.
Derby’s handling of the situation was vastly different than local scandals in neighboring Ansonia, Oxford and Shelton, where officials fully explained to the public what happened.
While the Board of Aldermen asked Coppola to prepare a report summarizing how he investigated the matter, they labeled it “attorney-client privilege” once it was created.
The report is posted below:
Derby Confidential Report by ValleyIndyDotOrg
The Valley Indy attempted to obtain the report through a complaint with the state’s Freedom of Information Commission, but the commission ruled Derby did not have to release it.
On Aug. 29, 2013 Coppola wrote a letter to the Aldermen’s Community Relations subcommittee asking that a two-person committee be formed “to investigate who disclosed the report” to the Valley Indy.
Coppola’s letter stated that he had distributed reports to the Board of Aldermen during a meeting Jan. 24, then collected all the reports, “except I did not receive the reports from Aldermen Gerckens, Aldermen DiCenso and Aldermen Sill.”
Coppola’s mention of Gerckens, DiCenso and Sill angered the Democratic trio, who sounded off during the Aldermen’s meeting Thursday. See the video at the top of this story.
“I don’t like to be accused of anything,” DiCenso said. “When you use the word ‘investigation,’ I think you are implying one of the three of us did something wrong.”
Barbara DeGennaro, president of the Board of Aldermen, wondered how such an investigation could be carried out.
“I don’t understand how we could, when there are so many uncertainties as to where that document could have gone, where it originated and where it went, to accuse anyone on this board,” she said.
Joseph DiMartino said no one was accused.
“Unfortunately, it (the report into mishandled cash) got out somehow,” DiMartino said. “And if it did get out by one of the Aldermen members, somebody should just come out and say that they did it.”
DiCenso said the document could have been obtained any number of ways.
“It could have been on somebody’s desk, for all I know,” he said, adding: “As far as I’m concerned, this is nothing more than a witch hunt.”
Ultimately the Aldermen took no action.
