"Beyond Reproach" or Caught Rewriting TIF Agreements?

I keep hearing that we should not question the motives, righteousness, virtue, honor, etc of Ken Fiola, executive vice president of the Fall River Office of Economic Development. To reiterate some points I have made in the past:

RECAP

• Ken Fiola should not be the treasurer of his wife's campaign because he is functionally/constructively a municipal employee and that is a violation of campaign finance law.
• Ken Fiola, as treasurer, should have recused himself from reviewing and making recommendations in favor of Peabody, where Peabody is a regular contributor to his wife's campaign funding. It is my contention that it is a violation of state ethics rules.

"BREAKING NEWS"

Fiola was clearly pleased to "break the news" on wsar yesterday that Burbank had a potential funding source from a "corporation" that wasn't yet incorporated. Despite the fact that this is legal business practice and that Burbank made no false representations about the fact that their funding was not yet incorporated, the wsar program yesterday with Ken Fiola and Alan Amaral hinted that there was something fraudulent afoot.

So here is my (old) "breaking news" on Mr. Ken "beyond reproach" Fiola who recently recommended the awarding of a TIF (tax increment finance) agreement to yet another company that contributed to his wife's campaign which could result in approximately $240,000 in tax benefits.......He was caught by the city council in 2000 REWRITING TIF agreements AFTER the City Council approved the specific wording of the agreements. Fiola, who gets paid handsomely for his duty of getting "Jobs for Fall River (the actual name of FROED)" rewrote one particular TIF agreement, among others, granting Quaker a 20 year TIF. The council approved of a TIF agreement with Quaker in May 1999. The agreement granted Quaker a 20-year TIF exemption. In return Quaker pledged to build a roughly 358,000-square-foot facility on Jefferson Street, and also to hire 700 new employees. According to Councilor Brian Pearson, the language in the Quaker TIF the state received and approved greatly differed from the TIF agreement the council had authorized earlier. Fiola's erroneously altered wording in the agreement removed the wording the Council had inserted in the agreement stating its "preference" that Quaker use local contractors "who have registered apprenticeship programs with the commonwealth of Massachusetts to encourage the training of a skilled work force." JOBS FOR FALL RIVER ........FAIL

According the the councilors in the same Herald News article, SEVERAL TIF agreements had been changed. Is Ken up to his old tricks again???????????? Nah, he is BEYOND REPROACH

RELATED ARTICLES TO KEN FIOLA REWRITING TIF'S

http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=1171001&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=8

http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=1166953&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=99784&rfi=8

Lest anyone forget

It is apparent that the system for commemorating notable Fall Riverites is severely flawed. Lackluster former mayors get rewarded with schools named after them:

while the shining stars of Fall River such as Dr. Irving Fradkin, the founder of Dollars for Scholars get this:

In 1958, Dr. Irving Fradkin founded the initial "Dollars for Scholars" chapter by challenging everyone in his community, Fall River, to give at least one dollar toward sending its youth to college. 50 years later Dr. Fradkin's "Scholarship America" has provided scholarships for over 1.5 million students and he still lives right here in Fall River.

I think that Mayor Correia may have gotten the commemorations backwards. Certainly Fradkin deserves something more honorable than a 1 foot by 1 foot sign hanging from a metal post.....

I recently went to visit the Paul K. McGovern square that Mayor Correia dedicated a few weeks ago. It is a lovely tribute to an obviously beloved restaurateur of Fall River but I couldn't help feeling that it belongs in a cemetery rather than a city square.

Hiding behind the giant McGovern memorial, was a tiny plaque that I discovered. The plaque indicated that the square, now McGovern Square, had previously been dedicated to Corporal David L. Miller, a son of Fall River. It reads "In Memory of David L. Miller, Corporal in the United States Army, a son of Fall River. Survivor of the Bataan Death March of 1942, he died in a Japanese prison camp in 1943. Lest anyone forget, may this garden serve as humble reminder of the sacrifice of all who gave their lives for liberty."

The plaque in the square that was once a tribute to a Fall River soldier who died in the line of duty now lies in the shadow of an enormous slab of granite memorializing a restaurateur.

If we are honoring notable Fall Riverites, where is the tribute to Fall River's resident Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. David Greer? In 1985, a group that Dr. Greer and five other American physicians established in collaboration with six Soviet Union physicians, The Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize.