City must put mess at Arena behind it

4/29/07
In a case with confusing time lines and disputed payments, it is now clear that Bridgeport erred in seeking to avoid payment in 2003 for work on the Arena at Harbor Yard. The city was told in no uncertain terms that the contractor, C.R. Klewin Northeast, was not a target in a federal criminal investigation centered around payoffs in City Hall. That the city proceeded with its claim anyway is the $6 million mystery.
That there were shady happenings under the eye of former Mayor Joseph P. Ganim is beyond question — his current nine-year prison term attests to that. But according to a recently publicized letter, the city knew four years ago that the multimillion-dollar Arena project was not among those that had been procured illegally. With that knowledge, it should have been clear that the city had no standing to argue that the final payment due the contractor of more than $4 million was not going to be overturned by an arbitrator or a judge.
And now, because of its intransigence, the city has turned a $4 million tab into a $10 million bill; three years of interest and legal fees will do that. City lawyers continue to insist that their case was solid, and did not hinge on whether the contractor committed a crime, only on the former mayor’s role. But considering that City Council leadership was unaware of the Klewin letter, and had seemingly been kept in the dark about its existence, the attorneys for the city owe an explanation.
The state Supreme Court ruled recently that the city must pay the outstanding money, and that it had claimed too late in the arbitration process over the final sum owed that corruption was a mitigating factor. While the city considers its options, interest continues to accrue. It’s time to put an end to this and pay the money.
But the larger issues still linger. A City Hall on the take has repercussions far past the end of the trials and long after the perpetrators are in prison. The effects of the Ganim administration’s malfeasance continue to resonate, and it clouds every step the city takes, whether entering into new projects or cleaning up old ones. As if the city needed another inducement to keep corruption out at all costs, it has just been granted a $10 million lesson.