Who cares if Lisa DiBello doesn’t file legally required forms?

Or if she files late? Or misreports or leaves out important facts?

By Will Collette

Lisa DiBello asked Charlestown voters to elect her in 2010 on the motto “Because I Care.” But the pattern of disregard for transparency and accountability shown in her record seems to say she doesn’t care.

Once DiBello took office, it didn’t take long to see that, contrary to her campaign promises, she was determined to settle old scores with the legions of people in town who have “persecuted” her. Pay-back seemed to be what DiBello cared about most.

Open war broke out in March, when she filed conspiracy charges against the town and ten present and former town officials. Then, starting in June, DiBello and other Council members began trading public attacks. At that point, I started to take an in-depth look at what was behind all these charges and counter charges. That led to the series of Progressive Charlestown investigative stories.

When DiBello was fired by Town Administrator Bill DiLibero, I felt bad, especially after hearing DiBello speak so passionately about how she had served the town as Parks and Recreation Director for 22 years.

But, as Progressive Charlestown readers know, I have been doing a lot of fact-checking on DiBello’s claims. Let’s start with that claim of 22 years of service because it should be pretty easy to check. I looked at all the reports DiBello filed with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, starting with the first one after she was hired.

DiBello stated on her very first ethics report, filed on April 27, 1990, that she was hired in October 1989. In her second report, filed on April 26, 1991, she clarified her hire date, noting she started working full-time in 1990.

She was fired in May 2010, so she actually was on the town payroll for 19.5 years, not 22.

However, in DiBello’s third ethics report filed on April 24, 1992, she changed her hire date to 1988. Later, in her April 25, 1997 ethics report, she said her hire date was October 1988. Still later, in the report filed on April 28, 2001, she changed her hire date to November 1988.

I don’t know why there were so many inconsistencies about her date of hiring, but these inaccurate statements were made under penalty of perjury. When I fill out a report, especially one carrying such an oath, I do my level best to be accurate. And accurately stating one’s hire date is not too much to ask of a municipal department head.

The annual reports to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission are always due in the last week of April. But as we’ve seen in this series, DiBello does not seem to have much respect for such obligations, whether it’s reports to the Internal Revenue Service about her non-profit organization, A Ray of Hope, or state annual corporate reports that are required in order to maintain the legal right to operate.

Yet, the date stamps on the ethics reports show that DiBello failed to file her ethics reports on time eight times, including her first filing in 1990, plus the reports in 1994, 1998, 2001 through 2003, 2006 and her last one as Parks and Recreation Director in 2010.

Since 1993, DiBello has shared her home with Deborah Dellolio. In 2000, DiBello and Dellolio became business associates when they incorporated A Ray of Hope, which they have run from their home ever since.

In 2001, Dellolio became a town contractor when she won the beach concession rights at Charlestown Town Beach, a monopoly she has held ever since. Dellolio’s hot dog wagon business operated under the supervision of Parks and Recreation Director DiBello from 2001 until DiBello was fired in 2010.

The relationship between DiBello and Dellolio is not noted in DiBello’s ethics reports.

In her ethics report filed on April 30, 1993, DiBello reported that she was a “partner” in a new business run from her home, which was 36 Benham at the time. The business was called “Announcements, Etc.,” which she described as “similar to Avon but for wedding orders at home.”

She does not disclose the names of the other partner or partners, and this business is never mentioned again in any of DiBello’s ethics reports.

However, a Dun and Bradstreet record continues to list Announcements, Etc., now shown at DiBello and Dellolio’s current address of 35 Morley Street. This D&B abstract says “completed analysis date: 2/28/98,” which indicates that someone from Announcements (DiBello or whoever the “partner” is) sent D&B a completed survey form in 1998, five years after the one and only mention of this company in DiBello’s ethics report.

D&B doesn’t automatically know if a business has dissolved, but when their report says they analyzed data on a certain date, that usually means what it says. In this case, there may be a problem of omission on DiBello’s filings. And that pesky “penalty of perjury” thing.

Dellolio is a town contractor who was under Lisa DiBello’s jurisdiction when she was Parks & Recreation director (and technically still, since DiBello votes on town contracts, budget and expenditures as a Town Council member). As Parks & Recreation Director, DiBello played a direct role in proposing who was given the town’s beach concession contracts and then oversaw the operations of those concessions. In case you need reminding, DiBello and Dellolio shared a home since 1993 and shared a business since 2000.

Under Rhode Island ethics rules, if Dellolio gave DiBello ANY gifts totaling more than $100 per year, those gifts MUST be reported. Yet there is no mention of any gift exchange between them in any of DiBello’s ethics reports. That includes the Olds Alero DiBello won on The Price Is Right – the car DiBello pledged to A Ray of Hope but instead transferred to Dellolio.

We Rhode Islanders crack a lot of jokes about corruption in government and scoff at whatever modest measures are taken to curb corruption. But these modest measures are all we’ve got. If we want corruption to stop, we have to start someplace to say NO MORE.

Since the year 2001, a town contractor has held a monopoly on the Charlestown Town Beach concession and paid less than a third to the town than contractors at Blue Shutters Beach. That town contractor usually won the beach concession contract without a bidding competitor. All that time, this town contractor was living under the same roof and running at least one business with the person who recommended the award of that contract and supervised its execution. And none of this was disclosed to the RI Ethics Commission or to the public.

P.S. For what it’s worth, DiBello’s antipathy to filing forms also extended to her RI Campaign Finance Reports for the 2010 election. She only had to file two reports that carried deadlines. She filed one on time. The second, the crucial report due 7 days before the election (the one where the CCA got nailed for misreporting), didn’t get filed until three weeks later. 

You have to give DiBello points for consistency, at least when it comes to her contempt for accountability.