An Ulster County grand jury has handed up a one-count indictment for a misdemeanor charge of official misfeasance against former county buildings and grounds superintendent Harvey Sleight for his conduct during the construction of the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center. District Attorney Holley Carnright announced the grand jury findings at a dramatic, short-noticed March 27 news conference held under the dome in the grand rotunda of the Law Enforcement Center.
Sleight, if found guilty of the charge, could face one year in jail – in another wing of the same edifice – and be fined $1,000. Sleight appeared for arraignment with his attorney, Michael Miranda, before judge Michael J. Bruhn, and pled not guilty on Monday, March 31. According to Carnright, the case was then adjourned for discovery and motions, which could take about a month.
The special committee of the county legislature that investigated the construction debacle had recommended that the grand jury look into potential misdeeds by former county legislature chairman Ward Todd, current county legislator and former chairman Richard Gerentine, and former county attorney Francis Murray. None were found, according to Carnright.
Sleight was charged with violating a 2000 county legislature resolution and General Municipal Law 104b, both of which require a request for proposals from professional-service providers for any and all contracts in excess of $40,000.
The contract, for approximately $98,000, was awarded to McNeice, Hatch and Roblee without such a process, after the firm was apparently shown a competitor’s proposal. The winning firm subsequently submitted a lower cost proposal that followed its competitor’s form nearly verbatim. “We have used the scope of work you provided…” wrote Joe Roblee of that firm to Sleight in February 1999.
“I have nothing to say to any of the press on this issue,” said Sleight on Monday, March 31. “What’s to say? It appears to me like I’m being a scapegoat. There was nothing done wrong. I’m not happy about the fact that the only name on the front page of the paper was mine. So it’s all being handled by my attorney.”
The fact pattern
The studies that were the subject of the work in question, part of an environmental analysis for SEQRA determination, involved an analysis of the size and purpose of the project. But virtually the same firm, under a different name, Crandell Associates, also got the contract to be architect of the project, despite specific warnings to legislators that the firm conducting the needs assessment should never be considered for the architect’s job. Such a competitor would have an incentive to make sure costs remained high.
“It would be a mistake for me to make Harvey Sleight a scapegoat,” said Carnright, before a hushed crowd in the rotunda, with sheriff’s department employees and deputies ringing the balconies. “Having said that, as district attorney, if the grand jury says there’s evidence of a crime, it’s up to me to prosecute it. In 1999, Sleight failed to perform his duty regarding the hiring of Roblee/Rosser. But there were no allegations of kickbacks.”
Consultant John Mavretich, whose two years of investigative work led to the county legislature’s report and subsequent recommendation that the district attorney look into criminal charges, acknowledged that there were still outstanding questions.
“What they’ve done seems consistent with my findings. Their focusing on the Track I and Track II (environmental) studies was entirely consistent with what I found,” said Mavretich. “There’s questions there and no apparent answers. There was a favor there for the architect of the jail. There appears to have been favoritism in assembling the cast of characters. Which of those characters were responsible for the specific decisions or actions that led to specific costs overruns is the subject of lawsuits going on now with the county, Crandell and Bovis (the project’s construction manager). Hopefully those actions will provide additional information on how specific overruns occurred.”
Why did Sleight support McNeice?
The grand jury has filed a report with Ulster County Court judge Bruhn that the district attorney believes will answer more questions.
“I don’t want anyone in this county to go away and think that this was not a thorough investigation,” said Carnright. “It was an exhaustive investigation. Everywhere I went in the county people said, I want to know what happened. This is a factual account. The goal of that report is to allow this community to look back and see what led us to 2007.”
It will be up to the judge to decide whether the report is made public, something that Carnright said he had recommended.
Why would Harvey Sleight have given another firm’s proposal to McNeice, Hatch and Roblee? Why was McNeice, Hatch and Roblee apparently favored? Did he act alone?
As Carnright put it in his news conference remarks, “This decision was consequential to the project as a whole, because it placed Mr. Roblee in a much stronger position to win the contract to serve as project architect …. Mr. Roblee’s partnership ultimately did win that contract despite offering a price a million dollars higher than a competitor firm with arguably better qualifications.”
Why was Barry Bette and Led Duke chosen to be the construction manager of the project when firms with arguably better qualifications, to use the DA’s terminology, bid lower?
Where did all the money go?
“I would caution that you should have some faith that this office is a professional office,” said Carnright on Tuesday, April 1, “and we have tried to uncover exactly that kind of fact pattern – that’s exactly what we have been trying to uncover. If there was a message, it is, honestly, folks, we’re not trying to cover anything up. We simply didn’t come up with the type of information the public is suspicious of.”
Carnright said that the grand jury report that he hopes will be released does not go in that direction. “I don’t think that report will answer the kind of questions you have. It wasn’t intended to be that kind of factual report.” He called the report more of “a basis from which to make recommendations.”
And he pointed toward the civil suits between the county and Bovis, the construction manager, and the county and Crandell, the architects, as the proper forum to lay bare the financial facts of the project.
“What people might focus on is that we have a fairly specific statutory function here (in the district attorney’s office). To prosecute crimes. That is not to say all is well in Disney World. Obviously there are some substantial problems with the building process. Those should be addressed in a civil form. I hope the message was not that all is well in the jail project. But we limited our investigation to the criminal process.”