text: Bridgeport resumes sidewalk work halted over FBI probe - CTInsider.com
  Brian Lockhart Oct. 21, 2020
  1of3Cracked and damaged sidewalks along Main St. in Bridgeport, Conn. Jan. 29. 2016.Photo: Dan Tepfer / Hearst Connecticut Media
  2of3Cracked and damaged sidewalks along Main St. in Bridgeport, Conn. Jan. 29. 2016.Photo: Dan Tepfer / Hearst Connecticut Media
  3of3Cracked and damaged sidewalks along Main St. in Bridgeport, Conn. Jan. 29. 2016.Photo: Dan Tepfer / Hearst Connecticut Media
  BRIDGEPORT — The city is re-launching a sidewalk repair program it halted over a year-and-a-half ago because the contractor was named in a subpoena from an FBI probe into local government.
  The City Council on Monday, after being advised by municipal counsel that it could otherwise be sued by the company, in a nearly unanimous vote agreed to allow G. Pic and Sons Construction to resume fixing a list of sidewalks that were part of the local firm's original three-year contract.
  That $3 million deal was supposed to have run from February 2017 until February 2020.
  "We have breached a contract — that is the truth," Municipal Attorney Lisa Trachtenburg told council members during Monday's teleconference. "We are trying to fix that breach."
  A spokesperson for G. Pic did not return a request for comment Tuesday.
  Federal authorities in February 2019 subpoenaed four years' worth of City Hall's dealings with G. Pic and two other area companies as part of an investigation into allegations of too many no-bid contracts issued by the Department of Public Facilities.
  The subpoena, coupled with some outstanding questions at the time about G. Pic's pricing, led the council's public safety committee that spring to pause the sidewalk work to review and potentially rebid the work.
  However, the matter never moved forward and had been in limbo until recently when public facilities proposed allowing G. Pic to resume the sidewalk repairs before the temperatures get too cold to do so.
  In a letter to the council Monday, Trachtenburg outlined the rationale for returning to the status quo. She noted how "to the best of our knowledge, information and belief" no one from G. Pic had been accused or charged with any wrongdoing related to the FBI probe.
  In contrast, that federal investigation — it was subsequently revealed in April 2019 — also focused on 2018's search for a police chief. And as a result, last month then-Chief Armando Perez and then-Personnel Director David Dunn were arrested for conspiring to help Perez become top cop with a five-year contract. Both men resigned and on Oct 5 pleaded guilty.
  Trachtenburg in her letter to the council also said the law department consulted with private counsel James DeVita, hired last year to assist Bridgeport in responding to the federal inquiry. Trachtenburg wrote that DeVita was "not aware of any information that would require the city to cancel or not honor" its contract with G. Pic. She also said the federal government had not taken any position on whether Bridgeport should resume conducting business with the contractor.
  "In addition it is our understanding G. Pic has been performing work for various other Connecticut municipalities, as well as for the state," Trachtenburg wrote.
  While her letter did not specifically conclude Bridgeport could face a lawsuit from G. Pic were the city not to honor the re-start the sidewalk repairs, Trachtenburg emphasized that possibility when addressing the council Monday.
  "We have not fulfilled our obligation on our end of the contract," she said.
  The sidewalk program was created by Mayor Joe Ganim's administration in 2016 as a temporary pilot initiative that would expire once the $3 million was spent. Under the program's terms, the city would cover half the costs of repairing hazardous private sidewalks if the property owners agree to pay the balance. The goal was to try to reduce the number of trip-and-fall lawsuits filed against Bridgeport over damaged sidewalks.
  In January 2016 a jury ordered the city pay a 73-year-old woman $416,000 for injuries she sustained from a fall.
  According to the city, there are about 50 property owners on the pending list awaiting the work to resume.