Cites Unusual Promotion
Tech Guild Rival: DDC 'Bought' Fort

By RICHARD STEIER

The challenger to Civil Service Technical Guild President Claude Fort turned up the heat in their runoff campaign last week by accusing him of getting an improper promotion and pay raise from his city agency for not strenuously opposing the farm-out of $112 million in design contracts.

MITCH FEDER: 'A bribe or a gift.'

The charge made by Mitchell Feder - a chairman of the Tech Guild's Housing Authority chapter - has the potential to resonate among a rank and file which puts a priority on keeping engineering and architectural work in-house.

Plays Corruption Card

Citing a 19-percent pay increase - from $54,972 to $65,357 - that Mr. Fort received in February 2005 when the Department of Design and Construction promoted him to Civil Engineer Level 2, Mr. Feder released a campaign flyer stating, "Is Claude Fort 'Corrupt'? You Decide!"

At the time of the promotion, the flyer noted, Mr. Fort was on a leave of absence from his DDC job, as he has been since becoming Tech Guild president six years ago. He had not passed a promotion exam for the higher title, Mr. Feder noted.

CLAUDE FORT: Not responding to charges.

He claimed the promotion was a quid pro quo for Mr. Fort expressing only token opposition three months earlier when DDC sought City Council approval of 33 design and construction management contracts with a total value of $112 million. Mr. Fort sent a letter objecting to the farm-out, Mr. Feder said in a Dec. 26 phone interview, but took no other steps, including appearing before the Council, to try to head off the award.

'Highly Unethical'

"To me, there's no valid reason that David Burney, the Commissioner of DDC, could warrant such a thing," Mr. Feder said of Mr. Fort's promotion. "The guy is on inactive status with the city. This to me is a bribe or a thank-you gift, and it's highly unethical."

A DDC form detailing the promotion and the higher salary it would carry included a line headed "Justification," but the typewritten explanation merely explained Mr. Fort's duties rather than stating why he deserved the upgrade.

DDC spokesman John Ryan Martine said in a statement that Mr. Fort "was issued an employment status change in January 2005 based upon previous work performed and time accumulated with DDC as an official employee." He declined comment on Mr. Feder's speculations about other factors influencing the upgrade.

Mr. Fort did not return calls seeking a response.

To bolster his claim that the promotion had an unsavory smell, Mr. Feder cited a memo from the Tech Guild's parent union, District Council 37, indicating that it was city policy not to promote union officials who were on leave from their municipal jobs.

'Must Be Active Staffers'

That memo was issued by the DC 37 general counsel's office in July 2000, during the Giuliani administration, to explain why another Tech Guild official, Rajiv Gowda, who had been released from his city job to perform union work, had not been given a promotion that was received by others who were in his job title. It stated, "The City has taken the position that he would only be promoted as part of a settlement if he was in active service, not on a leave of absence ... The City proposes that Mr. Gowda will be eligible for promotion upon his return to active service."

Mr. Feder finished second to Mr. Fort in the four-person race last month, but the incumbent did not get a majority of the votes cast, leading to a runoff between the two of them, with ballots going out this week.

Mr. Feder, who would have to close a gap of 429 votes in order to wrest control of the union from the two-term president, has also charged that several irregularities affected the initial vote and could have a harmful effect on the runoff.

Compounding those problems, he said, is that the Tech Guild election committee consists solely of persons designated by Mr. Fort.

Mr. Feder charged that many Guild members didn't receive ballots for the original election, while nonmembers including Roy Commer - a Feder supporter and former union president who lost his membership status more than five years ago - got them. Some DDC members, Mr. Feder said, who had voted in previous elections did not have their ballots tallied because they were erroneously listed as agency fee-payers rather than members in good standing.

In contrast, he said, during the original election, the union committee permitted the tallying of 227 ballots that did not contain members' signatures on their outer envelopes, as was specifically required on the ballot instructions that were mailed to them.

He also questioned Mr. Fort's allocating $300 to help pay for a Dec. 21 Christmas party at the Guild's Department of Environmental Protection chapter and then appearing there to receive the chapter's endorsement, calling that a violation of the union's bylaws.