Who's Got 20/20 Vision?

Either Charles Daglian is (1) the ONLY lawyer in the State of New Jersey qualified to advise the HHA or (2) the ONLY one Carmelo Garcia will work with, because his contract is on tomorrow's HHA agenda again.

This is what happens when Reform loses control of HHA leadership, as it did at last month's re-org.

So, the Daglian contract is BACK for the FIFTH time!  FIVE.

Carmelo is deploying the Daglian contract like a battering ram, if he keeps charging the gates it'll get through.  BOOM! BOOM!  BOOM!  Let him in!

Daglian's contract was voted DOWN last month in a 3-3 tie; that is a DEFEAT according to Robert's Rules of Order:

Handling tie votes 
Because a tie vote isn’t a majority, if your motion requires a majority vote, the motion is lost if it receives a tie vote. Therefore, a tie vote is as much of a decision as a majority vote in opposition.

Not in Carmelo's world. He's gotta have him.

Don't you wonder what makes Charles Daglian so uniquely qualified that in spite of the Board's  preference to solicit a new hire, Carmelo won't stop until he forces him through the gates?  

Does Daglian have 20/20 Vision?

Corporation Counsel Melissa Longo weighed in on last March's HHA attorney contract vote, and flagged serious ethical transgressions on Daglian's part:

From our review of the transcript, Mr. Daglian provided legal advice throughout the Meeting, including on the issue of whether the Board of Commissioners or the Executive Director was the appointing authority for the Authority. Mr. Daglian also discussed information presumably contained in his request for proposal, including the fact that he lowered his price so that he could continue working for the Authority. At no time during the Meeting did Mr. Daglian recuse himself or state on the record that he had a potential conflict of interest. 

 ...when the Authority discusses the contracts for general legal services at its next meeting, Mr. Daglian should not serve as attorney for the Board when the issue is discussed.  He must recuse himself as the Board’s attorney, and the Board should have substitute counsel available when this issue is discussed. 

So Daglian's BACK on again, for the FIFTH time.  Does he plan to remove himself from the dais and will a substitute counsel advise the Board through that vote?

I asked former HHA Chairman Jake Stuiver for comment on Daglian Part V, and here's his statement:

I e-mailed Carmelo asking for an explanation for why the Board is being asked to vote again on a resolution that failed last month, and got a response from one of his staffers that it technically didn't fail last month since it was a 3-3 tie, they are considering it to have been "tabled" and the new Chairman (Rob Davis) reserves the right to bring it back this month, which is what they are going to do. 

This is blatantly illegal, it is not even remotely ambiguous in the law and in Roberts Rules and our by-laws that a tied vote is a failed vote as sure as anything, as an item must receive a majority or it is deemed to have failed.. This isn't even subtle or subject to any degree of subjective interpretation. 

They are clearly banking on the fact that they know Judy Burrell will be absent again for this meeting and that maybe I won't show up (I will) and maybe they can browbeat Lincoln into folding or whatever variable may come into play. Their gameplan is to simply ram stuff at us, and bank on one or more of us failing to show up or to hold the line. 

Bear in mind that this is the fifth time this contract is being brought before the Board, and the second time since HUD issued a memo describing Daglian's conduct as "Perceived impropriety of current general counsel," stating that he may have violated his profession's ethical standards. 

It should seem fairly obvious to any fair-minded professional that the current composition of the HHA Board cannot in good conscience and fiduciary responsibility approve a contract with Mr. Daglian, yet we continue to waste time and money on the preposterous notion that Daglian is the only attorney in the entire world who meets the criteria for working for the HHA. 

 I believe that Carmelo's insistence on repeatedly trying to ram this self-disqualified vendor through the Board despite multiple legal memos documenting his alleged and perceived impropriety to be (a) suspicious, given Carmelo's unyielding insistence that this is the only attorney in the entire world that he is willing to allow the Board to vote on; and (b) wasteful, given that the Board has clearly communicated to Carmelo repeatedly past year that a majority of its members are not comfortable working with Daglian and wish to have a different proposal presented to the Board. 

Carmelo's continued insistence on peddling Daglian is disrespectful to the Board that employs him, the residents whose rent pays for much of this charade and the federal taxpayers who foot the rest of the bill, and wasteful of federal dollars in having to repeatedly advertise and process needless RFQ processes and continue to pay Daglian as a holdover despite the Board's clear preference to end the relationship. We are very quickly learning, as the City Council learned when Mason was Council President, just how flagrantly the other side is willing to flub any and all rule of law once they get their hands on the steering wheel.  

Well, there you go. Carmelo's insistence on Daglian shows he is functioning as Carmelo's personal lawyer and not the Board's.

The stink surrounding the Executive Director's insistence on hiring this ONE LAWYER grows ever more pungent.