Council
schedules second closed-door meeting on DiBello case at town lawyer’s office in Warwick
By
Will Collette
The
Charlestown Town Council has posted notice of yet another closed-door,
executive session meeting. This one will take place in Warwick, at the office
of Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero. The only item on the agenda is discussion of
Councilor Lisa DiBello’s lawsuit against the Town of Charlestown. This will be
the second closed door meeting on
the DiBello case this week.
 |
| Charlestown Town Council holds meeting in Warwick on Thursday |
It
will also be the first time I can remember a Charlestown Town Council meeting
being held outside of Charlestown. Under the state’s Open Meetings
Act,
members of the public are entitled to attend – in this case, you can drive up
to Warwick – although you are not
entitled to witness the executive session. Presumably, Ruggiero’s office will
make some provision for spectators who want to see what goes on before and
after the Council enters its executive session.
I
could find no provision in Charlestown’s Home Rule Charter that actually
requires Charlestown governmental meetings to be held in Charlestown. Maybe
this is a trial balloon – after the election, if the CCA Party retains power,
they might decide to hold meetings in western Connecticut or Florida to make it
easier for their campaign financial
backers
to attend.
But
I digress. Two closed door meetings in the same week with the second one in the town lawyer’s
office tells me that something big is up. Probably a settlement. As I have often
noted,
cases like this almost never go to trial; they are almost always settled, and
often when the municipality’s insurance carrier[1]
insists on it.
The
best way to understand the issues is to start by reading the allegations
Councilor DiBello filed against the Town and nearly a dozen past and present
town officials. You can read her allegations in their entirety and in her own words (well, as interpreted by her lawyer) by clicking here.
You can also read Charlestown's answer to DiBello's allegations (click here to read) but unfortunately, the town's defense is pretty standard - the Town denies all of the allegations and calls on DiBello to provide proof. They offer no useful detail to help Charlestown residents gain any real insight into the dispute.
DiBello overhears Sartor and Swain in raunchy conversation
Her
lawsuit stems from her firing by the Town Council in May 2010. The lawsuit was
filed on January 23, 2012. In between the firing and the lawsuit, DiBello filed an administrative complaint with the RI Human Rights Commission which was nearly identical to the lawsuit (read the HRC complaint here).
DiBello claims that her firing in 2010 was the
direct result of conspiracy between former Town Administrator Richard Sartor
(now head of the town Budget Commission) and then Town Administrator William
DiLibero, who has since left Rhode Island to become a City Manager of South
Padre Island, Texas.
If
you read DiBello’s detailed narrative, paragraphs 20 & 21, the conspiracy to wrongfully fire her
began on December 1, 2005 when she overheard Sartor and Tax Assessor Ken Swain
exchanging off-color NSFW[2]
remarks. She relates how she
tried to anonymously report this eavesdropped conversation and how that
triggered a five-year retaliatory conspiracy against her that led to her firing
by the Town Council in May 2010.
Alleged criminal conspiracy at the heart of the case
According to
paragraphs 63-65 of her lawsuit, DiBello alleges that Richard Sartor went to
Hopkinton to offer Bill DiLibero, then town manager in Hopkinton, the
better-paying Charlestown job in return for DiLibero's promise to get rid of
DiBello.
 |
| This is copied directly from DiBello's lawsuit. However, there are no other public records to support these allegations |
According
to DiBello, that’s exactly what happened. However, there is nothing in the
public record except DiBello’s allegation to support the claim.
DiBello’s
lawsuit also names the town council members who voted to fire her – Marge
Frank, whose husband Dick was just purged from the Zoning Board; Richard Hosp, who is being honored at the
August 12 Council meeting; Candi Dunn, Gregg Avedisian and Forrester Safford.
She
goes into some depth in describing things she claims Avedisian and Safford did
to her between 2005 and 2010 during the years they were in office.
She
alleges former Chief of Police Jack Shippee fabricated evidence against her.
She also names town GIS Specialist Steve McCandless as a defendant, though
there is nothing in the narrative that explains why McCandless is included.
Why not Swain?
She
levels serious allegations against Tax Assessor Ken Swain, not only for the
original 2005 raunchy conversation but for on-going acts of harassment (see
paragraphs 53, 56 and 62 of her lawsuit).
Curiously, Swain is not charged in DiBello’s lawsuit.
Other
town staff members past and present come up in DiBello’s narrative but are not
included as defendants.
There
are many people in town who will support Lisa DiBello to the death and believe
she got a bad deal when she was fired. When I read her own words, though, I see
a lot of allegations that demand some rigorous proof.
I
don’t doubt she overheard that raunchy conversation in 2005. However, nearly
all of the rest seems to require more proof than simply making the allegations
in a lawsuit.
The
key event in the narrative allegedly occurred in “the late spring of 2009.”
DiBello alleges that Sartor and DiLibero had a secret meeting in Hopkinton
where a conspiracy was hatched made where DiLibero got the new job in return
for giving Sartor his vengeance against DiBello.
Such
a deal is criminal and screams out for proof. Indeed, it screams out for State
Police intervention. If that meeting actually happened, then DiBello’s case
holds water. If it didn’t, DiBello’s case falls apart.
I
know there are people in Charlestown who think Bill DiLibero was the devil’s
spawn – it’s one point of common interest between the CCA Party and Jim Mageau.
Indeed, Jim Mageau recently wrote this long letter to the Westerly Sun on February about the DiBello case. It is not available electronically, so here is a screen shot of it:
One factual note - Mageau says that the alleged whispering campaign "also denounces her [DiBello] for allegedly demanding $1.5 million to settle her case. One way to quell rumors and address whether or not the $1.5 million demand was made is to look at the record.
This is from the letter sent by her lawyer to the Charlestown Town Council on December 20, 2011 (click here to read the entire letter):
Was DiBello denied due process?
The
other thing I found interesting, as I carefully read DiBello’s own description
of what happened after DiLibero was hired as Town Administrator until the time
she was fired, was the extent to which he attempted to get DiBello to conform
to the standards he expected, and the extent to which she resisted. See
paragraph 78 which is almost 11 pages long with subparagraphs that literally go
from (a) to (z). Compare it with best practices set out for “progressive discipline” in the workplace.
That issue, plus the alleged conspiracy by Sartor and DiLibero, would ideally be addressed in court so that we can all see the actual evidence and get an actual verdict.
No
matter how you feel about Lisa DiBello, Dick Sartor, Bill DiLibero or any of
the other people who became characters in this narrative, they deserve for the
truth to come out. So do Charlestown taxpayers and voters.
Will we ever know the truth?
But
if this case gets settled soon, as it appears it will, the parties will almost
certainly sign a “gag agreement” pledging they will not discuss or disclose any
aspect of this case.
There
will almost certainly be no statement of blame or blamelessness that will settle the merits
of the case that would only be revealed if this case went to trial.
It
will be good for Charlestown to be rid of this case because of the years of
pain and uncertainty it has caused. In that respect, it resembles the Whalerock
wind turbine battle. In both cases, regardless of the merits or for that matter
the truth, maybe it’s better to just pay the money (or actually, let the
insurer pay off) and end it.
However, reputations
have been damaged, relationships have been ruined, innocents have been hurt and
bad feelings will remain. Then, we will have another decade or so to play “he
said, she said,” with closure coming when the main players die off.
FOOTNOTES
[1]
Charlestown, like most RI municipalities, buys liability coverage for occasions
like this from the RI Interlocal Risk Management
Trust. If they insist on a settlement, they will pay. If they insist on a
settlement and Charlestown refuses to settle, the Trust may then tell
Charlestown it’s on its own. Charlestown loses lawsuits all the time (and wins
some too). Like any insurance, the main impact of losing is its effect on
rates.
[2]
NSFW = “Not Suitable for Work.” Most workplaces have policies that forbid
certain types of conduct that are deemed offensive.