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The FIX is in
Conflict of Interest Abound on CDBG Requests

When the selection committee decides who is to get the 4 million dollars in Community development black grants and makes their recommendation to the mayor there may be more going on than meets the eye.

City Councilor Nunzio DiMarca has submitted a request for CDBG funds from the city in the amount of $200,000. The money DiMarca is seeking will go to none other than the Sons of Italy for youth programs. DiMarca is president of the Sons of Italy and also sits on the selection committee making recommendations to the mayor as to who should get these funds.

But DiMarca is not alone in this conflict of interest debacle. School Committeeman Pedro Arce sits on the board of Lawrence Community Works and the Adalente Youth Center. Both organizations submitted grant requests (LCW put in for $339,000 while Adalente Youth Center is requesting $38,500) all the while Arce sits on the selection committee to dish out the grants that he will ultimately be involved in spending.

Both DiMarca and Arce should be removed from the CDBG selection committee since both of them have a conflict. It is impossible to maintain the public trust when the very people who will receive grant money are the same people deciding which grants will be dolled out.

Councilors Nick Kolofoles and Marilda Gosselin also put in grant requests for sidewalk and infrastructure repair in their respective districts. This is not a conflict of interest because their requests, if granted, will not go to a private organization where they will oversee the money being spent.

A high placed city official told Rumbo off the record that Lawrence Community works has been strong arming people at city hall to deprive the first time homebuyer program of needed funds in order to fund LCW's pork barrel projects. With Pedro Arce sitting on their board and the ability of LCW to muster 40 employees and recipients to intimidate the council any time there is a public hearing it looks like the fix is in.

What we should be using this Community Development Block Grant Money for is repairing the infrastructure that was neglected by the Dowling administration for four years. Don't count on that happening, folks. Not with people on the selection committee slated to receive the very funds they are responsible for dishing out.

Even if Arce and DiMarca remove themselves from voting on the items that their private groups will benefit from, their influence on the selection committee and their ability to vote against competing grant requests means (at best) the appearance of impropriety and (at worst) actual impropriety.

The public must have full confidence that their money is being handled and disbursed in a fair and unbiased manner. You can't have that when people on the selection committee are the same people putting in requests for that money.