I was really looking forward to the special meeting of the ordinance committee that was going to get to the bottom of the Pagano Seafood porn incident. Overall I was disappointed and pleased. I was disappointed because the series of questions that I had about the incident weren’t answered. This has to do with the fact that David Watts, Pam Stark and Alex Knopp did not show up to answer questions. Alex Knopp did send a statement, which was read, and which I posted at the bottom of this post.
Those questions pertain to why the Police did not interview “Todd.” There are a couple of answers to that. Either they felt that the incident didn’t happen as it was recounted. Or that they backed off for some unknown reason.
For whatever reason there is much angst, on the part of Galen Wells and Alex Knopp that this is some sort of political “witch hunt”. Knopp went as far as saying the hearing, which he was not attending, was some sort of Duke Lacrosse prosecution. I guess he’s saying that he thinks the whole incident was made up. Another class act there Alex.
Galen, maybe caught between carrying Alex’s water and acting as the attorney for Paganos’, delivered a statement. That statement said that Pagano’s fired the employee and did not know anything else. Well somehow the details weren’t listed.
Who was the employeee? how long did the employee work at Pagano’s? When was the employee fired? Did Pagano’s do an investigation to confirm the allegation?
I was pleased that the hearing overall methodically went through the details of what happened and who knew of what when. At least it did so after Mike Coffey and Matt Miklave went through a testy exchange prompting Coffey to threaten to throw Miklave out because Miklave wanted to make a point of order about some procedure of the meeting. The point of order was over the agenda and whether Coffey could just begin with the questioning or have to hold the public hearing first. That of course led to a showdown over Mason’s Rules, with Coffey suggesting angrily that Miklave go get his copy and show Coffey where it said he had to open with the public hearing. I think they could both use a turn or two at rock ‘em sock ‘em robots before each meeting to get that attorney testosterone out their systems before subjecting the rest of us to these displays. But it’s just as likely that Miklave wasn’t trying to be a nit picker for the rules but was trying to derail the questioning since the political pressure being routed through the usual Democratic suspects was running high. Alex and Galen really don’t want the truth to come out, so they worked the phones, essentially.
So what did we learn? We learned that according to Darlene Young, and contrary to Alex Knopp’s statement and his statement in the newspaper, that there was no ban, there was no documentation left following the incident of the summer of 2005. Alex Knopp lied. Or maybe he does think there’s this documentation, but its clear form Darlene Young that it is missing. It would have been helpful if he could have provided details of this great documentation. And here’s where the meeting turned to what will prove to be the lasting legacy of the incident. Darlene and James Haselkamp from personnel both expressed that better communication, more formalized guidelines would help make the program operate better.
Carvin Hilliard and Rick McQuaid were very concerned that the investigation and suggestions that were coming out of the discussion would lead to businesses being scared off from participating in the Summer jobs programs. I think that they were reacting to rhetoric being thrown around over the lawyerly tit for tat over the DCF filing and mandatory reporting. There was some concerns about the background checks being required of employers participating, but I suspect that those issues were brought up because so many details about the incident have not been answered. Which again comes back into why no one wants to come forward with the details of what actually transpired at Pagano’s that week in July of 2005.
Rick McQuaid was also very insulted by the political attack sent by Knopp. You’ll have to read the full statement below, but it was insulting to all the Common Council members.
So while the full Alex Knopp statement went through his self praise for such a wonderful job he did, here’s some excerpts:
Within seconds of being told, I instructed the staff to inform Chief Rilling and the Norwalk Police Department about the incident so they could conduct an investigation. I also gave directions that no further participants were to be sent by the program to that employer
Seconds? Well I talked to David Watts and they waited to contact the Police the next day. David Watts, and not Darlene Young was running the Summer Youth Jobs Program that July of 2005. And it was Pam Stark who made the call according to the Police report, not David Watts, who admitted that it was he who wrote the original incident report.
These two instructions were carried out. There was no delay or hesitation on my part in ordering that the Police be informed. I acted quickly both to protect the young man and to safeguard the summer jobs program from political attack. I had no further direct involvement with the matter.
Ok so Knopp is saying it was someone else who called up the Wells’ to say that there was a problem at Pagano’s and that the porn was shown to the child on a computer. No one has explained how the computer got to the Wells’ or when it got there. Why this is such a big secret is beyond me. It’s such a simple thing to say the truth now, if this has been thoroughly investigated. But I digress. He also said that he was immediately worried that the summer youth program would be under political attack. For what? Doing the right thing by reporting the incident? Why would politics be in play at all?
Here’s what Knopp had to say about the incident report:
When informed about this incident, I responded swiftly and properly. A written incident report was filed and a police investigation was done. These documents have been released to the press and the public.
Well yes they have, but not because anyone wanted to release them. Darlene Young testified that there was no document banning Pagano’s from participating in the summer youth jobs program. There was no report filed that documented the incident. There was no documentation what so ever. When I spoke to David Watt’s on the subject, he suggested that the document was in his personal files that he had left behind. So from the ordinance committee’s perspective, there was this big glaring hole of lack of documentation that seems to have slipped by the political prism of Knopp.
I’d like to point out that Matt Miklave read Knopp’s statement after all the questioning was done. It’s important to know that because of the tone of the end part of the statement.
I recently accepted an invitation to appear before a Council entity that was improperly and illegally set up to investigate the Fire Department in the hope that a thoughtful and rational discussion could be held nonetheless. I was wrong. All notions of fair play were thrown out the window by certain members of that “committee.” I was treated in a rude, unprofessional, uncivil, and discourteous manner–both as a citizen and as a former mayor. It was an appalling display of the tactics of the Duke Lacrosse prosecutor combined with a Karl Rove-type political agenda designed to destroy political opponents.
So Knopp is basically saying that the Common Council can’t hold investigations, dismisses the work of its committees and thinks everything is about political attacks on himself. Apparently Alex Knopp thinks Common Council members should never ask him anything because as his statement said, he never makes mistakes, documents everything and does a wonderful job. Riiiggghhhttt.
You would think if everything Knopp did was true that he’d be just as outraged that Darlene Young called Pagano’s in the spring of 2006 to see if she could place kids there. He’d be outraged that his order to file a report in the Summer Jobs Program files wasn’t carried out. He’d be outraged that there wasn’t a uniform procedure to handle an incident such as this, so that the city, the kids, the businesses who participated all could operate with reasonable expectations. And most importantly he’d be outraged enough to find out if “Todd” hooked up with another company participating in the Summer Youth program.
The rest of the ordinance hearing concerned changes to whether the utility companies can will nilly dig up streets without checking with DPW. Mr. Hiscox (sp?) was against it. Hal Alvord was for it. The committee seemed to want to kick it back to corporation counsel. Alvord stated that repaving roads, just from a maintenance standpoint costs $5 million a year. Which we know does not get put into the budget. My take is that Alvord is right, there needs to be controls on when and where utilities can dig up streets, they should be bonded more, and they should required to leave the roads to the quality they were before. After several months you would think that this ordinance would get voted on, but no the pace of government moves at glacial speeds. And that’s why 22 months after the Pagano incident, we are still talking about it.
