by Thomas Breen The New Haven independent
Bekhrad: She’s “still depending very much on [Redente’s] guidance because he’s the alder for this location.” Credit: Alexandra Martinakova file photo
A Fair Haven alder stepped down from his part-time job as a consultant and assistant for a Fair Haven developer after the city’s Board of Ethics ruled that his occupying both roles at the same time constituted a conflict of interest.
Frank Redente, Jr. — a lifelong Fair Havener who just began his second two-year term as Ward 15’s alder — had sought out an advisory opinion from the ethics board after starting the 20-hour-per-week job with Fereshteh Bekhrad’s River Front Development LLC last October.
Redente and Bekhrad told the Independent on Tuesday that Redente resigned his job with River Front after the ethics board handed down its advisory opinion on Jan. 13.
That ruling makes clear that no one had filed any complaint against Redente, and that the board’s opinion “concerns future conduct, not past behavior.” The opinion concludes by stating that “the Alder may not continue to hold compensated employment with Riverfront Development, LLC while serving on the Board of Alders.”
“It is what it is,” said Redente, who also works at Fair Haven School as a youth development coordinator. “I’m a survivor, that’s what I do. I’ll pick up something else.”
“He has a lot of good qualities of talking with people, negotiating, running and getting things done,” Bekhrad said about why she wanted to hire Redente in the first place. “He’s very energetic, a very worthwhile person.”
Even though Redente is no longer working for her, Bekhrad said she’s “still depending very much on his guidance because he’s the alder for this location. He always wanted this project [to succeed], even before he became an alder.”
Bekhrad’s company is looking to build dozens of new senior apartments and 18,000 square feet of commercial space across three planned new buildings along the Quinnipiac River on Front Street. Those waterfront properties sit in Redente’s ward.
As Redente explained at a Nov. 10 hearing before the city’s ethics board, Bekhrad had hired him to help out with a bunch of different aspects of the project — including working with the contractors who will be conducting soil testing and environmental remediation at the vacant, ex-industrial site. The state has awarded Bekhrad’s company $995,000 to clean up 185, 212, and 213 Front St. to make way for the mixed-use redevelopment.
Bekhrad “asked for my résumé,” Redente told Board of Ethics Chair Matthew Watson and Vice-Chair Robert Post in November. She then asked Redente if he wanted a part-time job consulting on the project. Redente said yes.
Redente made clear during the November hearing that he planned to abstain “from all deliberations and votes having to do with the project, as any other alder would whose employer has business before the board.” He said he already abstains from schools-related votes because of his employment by the Board of Education; when he worked for the nonprofit Connecticut Violence Intervention Program (CT VIP), he similarly avoided voting on any matters related to his employer.
“I just wanted to get out in front of any potential conflicts by putting this before the Board of Ethics,” Redente said in November. “I just felt like it was the proper step to do.”
The ethics board is charged with providing broad-reaching oversight over potential conflicts of interest regarding city employees, appointees, and elected officials. In the past, it has weighed in on topics ranging from whether a police officer should be allowed to serve on a local nonprofit’s board of directors, whether the sister of a city employee should be allowed to buy a city-built two-family house, and whether a city staffer whose job it is to process marriage certificates should also be allowed to perform weddings for pay.
Click here to read about the ethics board’s purview, as laid out in the city’s charter. Click here to file a request for an advisory opinion or investigation. According to the charter, the Board of Ethics dates back to 1961, and board members serve two-year terms.
In a six-page ruling signed by Watson and Post on Jan. 13, the ethics board found that Redente’s promise to abstain from deliberating and voting on matters related to this development project does not eliminate a real or perceived conflict of interest.
“Members of the Board of Alders exercise influence beyond formal votes, including through informal discussions, constituent communication, policy development, and interactions with City staff,” the opinion states. “The potential for an actual conflict in such communications is not cured by an abstention from formal deliberations and votes.”
The ruling cites Sec. 12-5/8-5(a) of the city’s Code of Ordinances, which states that a public official has a conflict of interest when they “will or may derive a direct monetary gain by reason of the official’s activity or position.” Given that Bekhrad’s company will need approvals from the Board of Zoning Appeals and the City Plan Commission for this project, Redente “has a direct financial relationship with a private entity whose interests may be affected by his public role.”
The ruling also cites Sec. 12-5/8-4(b) of the city’s Code of Ordinances, which “requires public officials to avoid not only impropriety but also the appearance of impropriety.”
“A reasonable member of the public, aware that an Alder is being paid by a private developer with an active project in the Alder’s ward, could conclude that the Alder’s public responsibilities may be influenced by that private development,” the ruling states. “The Board therefore finds that the employment creates, at minimum, the appearance of impropriety, independent of the potential actual conflicts of interest described above.”
Redente said that he disagrees with the ethics board’s decision, even as he agreed to follow it and gave up his job with Bekhrad. He stressed that he had no decision-making authority in his role at Bekhrad’s company; that he was “doing manual labor” and “overseeing demolition testing.”
Ever since he got laid off by CT VIP last year, he said, money’s been tight. “I wanted to take a job where I can stay in Fair Haven” and help with the revival of a plot of land that has been vacant and underused for as long as he can remember.
“I like to think I’m a man of integrity,” Redente added. His decision to abstain from related deliberations and votes — as well as giving up his assignment on the Board of Alders Community Development Committee — should have been enough. “She needed someone capable” and someone who “knew the neighborhood,” Redente said about why Bekhrad wanted to hire him.
“I’ve always known Frankie to be a highly ethical person,” said fellow Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller, a mentor and friend of Redente’s who represents the nearby Ward 14. She also said that she doesn’t agree with the ethics board’s decision. “I think they made the wrong call.”
“It’s challenging enough to identify people who are willing to make the commitment on top of whatever else they’re doing in their lives,” Miller said about “citizen legislatures” like the Board of Alders, where members are paid a nominal amount for their public service and often hold down full-time private jobs. “It is concerning that this standard would be set.”