Middletown Board (Bored) of Ethics?

Councilman Kleckowsky

Last October, Councilman Deb Kleckowski filed an ethics complaint against then Democrat gubernatorial candidate and Middletown mayor, Dan Drew.  The complaint alleged Mayor Drew illegally and improperly obtained the personal contact information of Middletown police officers and firemen for the purpose of soliciting campaign contributions.

The information was obtained through the city's Human Resources Department and was intended for a purpose unrelated to the mayor's official duties.  This is a violation of Section 40-7 A and B of the city's Ethics Code, other parts of the Ethics Code and Connecticut General Statutes.

Democrat Mayor Drew admitted doing this, but claimed the confidential information given to him was an "accident" or "mistake".  When he learned of the "mistake", he apologized, returned any campaign contributions he received from his solicitation, and destroyed the list of city employee's home addresses.  Or so he says.

Upon examination of the complaint, the Board of Ethics determined the mayor did indeed violate the city ethics code, as well as Connecticut statutes.  They determined that; whether or not the violation was intentional was irrelevant; it was nevertheless a violation.

"Accordingly, the Middletown board of Ethics finds that the Mayor violated the Code of Ethics when he obtained confidential information which was used to solicit political contributions for a campaign for election to public office."

Mayor Drew

Then, in a stunning turnaround, Ethics Board members John. F. Shaw, Gregory M. Harris and Stanley Sadinsky found the following: 

"The Board has considered these claims carefully but finds that the conduct of the Mayor as alleged and as conceded to not (sic) reach the level of violations (sic) of the Code of Ethics."

You may draw your own conclusions.


The full Ethics Board report follows.