Who is Jerry Barberio?
There is something rotten in the Village of Mamaroneck and his name is Jerry Barberio.
Barberio is the Village Manager who blind copied me on some supposed political dirt on a sitting Town Board member who is gay; the gist of the material he “accidentally” sent to me was that the Board member sexually harassed him. When I called and asked why I was blind copied on an email from someone I do not know he lied, claiming he “used the wrong list”, whatever that means.
The email referenced a 152 page document he had emailed to Mayor Tom Murphy. I FOIL’d for that in June and he replied he would send it to me at the end of August. I made an Appeal on the grounds that he must produce the records within 5 days or request an additional 20 days — not months. He had 10 days to decide the appeal. He ignored my appeal and subsequent follow ups. These are all violations of state law.
Barberio has now basically flipped me off a number of times.
I have not covered the VOM government beat until now. Barberio’s behavior, which includes a first — his referring my recent media inquiry about a truck with long-expired Maine license plates parked on Village property to outside counsel because, he says, the woman who tipped me to the issue works for a law firm — has apparently served his purpose.
He now has my complete undivided attention.
As readers know, public officials do not last long in their jobs when they get a “Who is ... ?” headline.
To get started on the VOM mess, I filed a series of FOIL requests (there will be additional requests) to start the process of understanding the Village and Jerry Barberio.
I started off with one that some may find odd so I will explain.
A list of all scanners (make/model) including printer/scanner/copiers owned or leased by the Village of Mamaroneck including departments or bureaus such as police or fire.
One trick of government officials is to attempt to jack up the cost of FOIL requests (and delay response times) by claiming they must deliver paper records. I like to document early on that they have scanners that can convert paper to PDF. If they do, they are required to scan documents and email them to me at no cost to me.
Next up is looking into financial malfeasance. This can, of course, be a large pile of corruption and abuse but to get started I like to look at expense reports and mobile phones where abuse often occurs.
A list of all employees issued mobile phones from January 1, 2018 until present.
All expense reports, along with all receipts and invoices and payments, for all members of the Board of Trustees from January 1, 2018 until the present.
Finally, as an opening into police issues, I want to look at VOMPD records.
All VOMPD use of force reports as far back as they go.
All police disciplinary records as far back as they go.
Between this and the missing 152 pages, there should be enough to get me started.
I have also started to look into filing ethics complaints which, as readers know, has proven highly effective in New Rochelle.
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