| The economy is suffering, budgets are under pressure, and Greenwich enjoys no immunity to the downturn. Hard times mean that Greenwich cannot afford to pass up any source of funds. Yet Greenwich first selectman Peter Tesei did just that, dropping the ball repeatedly on the town's requests for federal assistance, and ultimately costing Greenwich tens of millions of dollars in federal aid it should have received. Not only was Mr. Tesei the last first selectman and mayor in the fourth congressional district to apply for federal stimulus funds, he was also the last municipal executive in the entire state to submit a funding request. Hard against the deadline to apply for stimulus funding, Mr. Tesei's foot-dragging precipitated a last-minute meeting with congressman-elect Jim Himes on Christmas Eve to submit the town's request. Mr. Tesei interpreted the criteria for stimulus projects so narrowly that he brought to the meeting a proposal totaling only $17 million. In contrast, the city of Bridgeport, with twice the population of Greenwich, had already applied for $868 million in stimulus funding. Stamford, with close to double Greenwich's population, had formally requested $414 million. Westport, with half our town's population, asked for approximately $100 million. |
| Further, instead of engaging in a collaborative effort to maximize Greenwich's share of the stimulus, Mr. Tesei declined to include selectman Lin Lavery in planning for the request, and did not invite her to attend that critical meeting to finalize Greenwich's application. Neither did Mr. Tesei engage any of the town's department heads to help develop Greenwich's stimulus proposal. Only at the insistence of Planning & Zoning member Frank Farricker, whom Mr. Tesei did invite to the meeting, was Ms. Lavery brought in, and only at the last minute. Mr. Farricker and Ms. Lavery were instrumental in dramatically boosting Greenwich's request for stimulus funds from the original $17 million to $84 million.
Yet after submitting the town's request, Mr. Tesei dropped the ball again. Instead of aggressively and regularly following up with our congressional delegation to advocate for Greenwich's request, Mr. Tesei made no efforts to push for stimulus funds in Washington. In contrast, Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, Bridgeport mayor Bill Finch, and other town first selectmen frequently traveled to Washington to push for their towns' funding requests and coordinate strategy with Congressman Himes. Moreover, Mr. Tesei refused to take or return calls from Congressman Himes' staffers who attempted to contact him regarding federal funding requests.
Largely due to Mr. Tesei's lack of planning and follow-up, Greenwich was awarded only $4 million from the stimulus bill. By contrast, Bridgeport was awarded $116 million, Stamford is receiving $100 million, and Westport $20 million. Each received between 20%-25% of their initial requests. Greenwich received less than 4% of its total request. Had Greenwich received an amount comparable to that granted to other towns and cities in this region relative to its population, Greenwich would have received between $40 million and $50 million.
At the recent Riverside Association debate, Ms. Lavery pointed out that Mr. Tesei should have appointed a town employee to work full-time coordinating and preparing the town's stimulus request. Mr. Tesei claimed that he did appoint an employee to do just that- town administrator John Crary. But Mr. Crary is responsible for all town administrative functions, and suggesting that he was working full-time to locate and obtain federal funding is simply not credible.
Mr. Tesei also failed to properly apply for a $1.5 million federal earmark for the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a feasibility study to identify measures to prevent flooding on the Byram River. The town submitted a request to Congressman Himes in March, who immediately submitted it for consideration by the House Energy and Water Subcommittee. But Mr. Tesei did not submit the plan to Connecticut's senators for consideration in the Senate as he should have, nor did he attempt to follow up with them. As a result, when Save Our Shores' Jo Conboy followed up on the status of the earmark request in May and realized that the plan had not been submitted to the Senate, she attempted to do so, but was told that the deadline had passed. Mr. Tesei's failure to properly apply for and follow up on the request resulted in its being dropped from consideration and the $1.5 million lost to the town.
Mr. Tesei's egregious failure to properly apply and advocate for federal assistance cost this town tens of millions of dollars. Greenwich taxpayers certainly deserved better. |
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