3 who voted out BPL head have business links to city
Trustees declare Menino did not influence vote
Three trustees of the Boston Public Library who voted to oust the library's longtime president have substantial business ties with the city, raising questions about their independence from Mayor Thomas M. Menino's administration, a Globe review has found.
Each of the three trustees - Zamawa Arenas, Donna M. DePrisco, and Karyn M. Wilson - also failed to disclose those ties as required by the state conflict-of-interest law, according to a review of filings at the city clerk's office.
The three trustees were on the majority side of a 7-to-2 vote last November to oust Bernard A. Margolis, a move widely seen as orchestrated by the mayor in an attempt to gain greater control of the library system headquartered at the main branch on Copley Square. Margolis and Menino have feuded politically for years, butting heads over library operations and direction. If Arenas, DePrisco, and Wilson had voted the other way, Margolis would have retained his post.
DePrisco, Arenas, and Wilson said business relationships with City Hall never influenced their decisions as library trustees. DePrisco and Arenas said they didn't know they were supposed to disclose anything publicly. Wilson said she did not believe disclosure was necessary.
The head of an official city watchdog agency said the undisclosed financial links raise questions about their independence from City Hall.
"Certainly the trustees should be complying with the requirements of the conflict-of-interest law and disclosing their financial interests with the city," said Jeffrey W. Conley, executive director of the Boston Finance Commission, an independent board appointed by the governor and charged with rooting out mismanagement in city government.
In the last five years, DePrisco's jewelry business, DePrisco Jewelers, received $38,148 from various city agencies for gifts and engraving; and Wilson, a fund-raising consultant, collected $48,300 from a city-held trust fund for organizing a fund-raising drive. Since she was named to the board in 2006, Arenas's company, a marketing firm called Argus Communications, received payments of $174,829 to implement campaigns for the Department of Neighborhood Development, Elderly Commission, and Public Health Commission.
The previously undisclosed financial links would appear to bolster accusations by Margolis last year that Menino has more influence over the nine-member library Board of Trustees than he should. The outgoing library president, whose last day was June 30, said in an interview shortly after the vote that some trustees told him they could not vote to keep him for fear of jeopardizing their relationships with City Hall.
The vote touched off a series of public feuds between Margolis and City Hall, with the outgoing president comparing the mayor's administration with an authoritarian regime set on undermining library independence and whose "anti-intellectual bent" could jeopardize the venerable institution. Margolis declined to elaborate or comment for this article.
The mayor, through his spokeswoman, Dorothy Joyce, said he did not have anything to do with the trustees or their companies winning city business. Joyce said no one at City Hall attempted to use those financial relationships to sway library trustee votes.
"They are in no way treated any differently than anyone else receiving contracts with the City of Boston or its affiliated boards," Joyce said. "They are quite simply the best people for the job."
State conflict-of-interest law states that trustees or board members of public agencies who fail to disclose financial dealings with the municipality could be subject to fines of up to $3,000 and up to two years in prison.
Since shortly after the vote to remove Margolis, the State Ethics Commission has been investigating whether Menino illegally interfered in library hiring, ostensibly to fulfill political favors, according to a senior official briefed on the probe. The Ethics Commission would not comment.
City records show large payments going to each of the three trustees.
Arenas's marketing company, Argus Communications, collected $488,845 from City Hall and its related agencies between 2003 and May 2006, when she became a trustee, in addition to the $174,829 since then, the records show. The purchases, most of which were made as part of publicly bid contracts, called for Argus to perform marketing work for three agencies, including a campaign for the Boston Public Health Commission that promoted healthy eating habits.
Arenas said in an e-mailed statement that she did not believe the conflict-of-interest law required her to disclose her business relationship with the health commission because she does not think it is a city agency as described under the law. She said she wasn't informed that she had to disclose the other contracts.
"Now that I have been, I will file a disclosure, and in the future, I intend to file disclosures for any direct or indirect financial interests of which I am aware," she wrote.
From DePrisco Jewelers, city departments, including the public library, purchased $38,148 worth of goods and services since 2003. No purchase was made after competitive bidding because each was less than $10,000, the minimum amount at which bidding laws require city employees to get competing quotes before buying goods or services.
Two city agencies - the Mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Relations and the Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events - bought $33,509 worth of mayoral gifts and engraving services, including for paperweights, swan pins, and pens. The Parks Department also bought gifts totaling $3,128.76. The library paid $1,510 for brass plaques and engraving services.
DePrisco has been a library trustee since 1995. In the six months before she voted to oust Margolis, the city paid DePrisco Jewelers $2,798. Two days after the vote, the city paid the company $455 for commemorative gift services.
DePrisco said in an interview that the city has been doing business with her family's company for 60 years and that she has always kept her dealings with City Hall separate from her decisions as a library trustee. She said she plans to disclose future city purchases in writing on a document filed with the city clerk, as required by law.
Wilson, the fund-raising consultant, has received a total of $48,300 from city-held trust funds since she became a library trustee in 2003. Wilson was paid to organize fund-raising drives and provide consulting services for Boston Main Streets Foundation. The foundation was established by the city to support the Main Streets program, a public-private partnership founded by Menino in the early 1990s to revitalize neighborhood commercial districts.
Wilson said she was hired by the foundation, an independent charity, and therefore didn't have to disclose the income publicly, even though she was paid from city-held trust funds.
"The mayor's office and the city did not have anything to do with that hiring," Wilson said. "That work, or any other work I do for that matter, had absolutely no influence whatsoever on my vote not to renew Bernie Margolis's contract."
A fourth trustee, state Representative Angelo Scaccia, also received money from the city, but a much smaller amount. The Boston public schools paid him $5,828 to referee football games. Scaccia, who cast one of the two dissenting votes Nov. 13 on the motion to oust Margolis, did not return calls seeking comment.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. 