Conversation with Rick Feldman

From HCAC Debacle to City Hall?

By Edward Shanahan

After some glitches, I finally sat down with mayoral candidate Rick Feldman recently to talk, not so much about his campaign, as about his role at the Hampshire Community Action Commission, which went belly up this summer on his watch.

 When a 40-year-old anti-poverty agency with a budget of $11 million and some 160 employees goes under, the obvious question is: who the hell wasn’t paying attention?

   That should be the agency’s board of directors in my view. Their responsibility is to keep track of the performance of its paid staff, protect against the misuse of public funds and assure that programs and services are professionally run and responsibly managed.

  Feldman, who seems to feel he is being unfairly blamed for the collapse of HCAC, agrees. Writing in the Gazette in July, Feldman made the point that “organizations need continual, constant oversight” and “continual attention and inspection…”

 In our conversation, he repeatedly made this

same point in describing his experience with the agency from the spring of 2003 when he started as a consultant for HCAC’s early childhood programs, the spring of 2004 when he became a full-time staff member and the fall of 2004 as the $65,000 interim director.

 From the beginning of his involvement, he says, he began to “wonder if anyone’s eyes are open?”  Board members, he says, “are supposed to probe” and “ask critical questions.” But that was not being done, even though the board was composed of people he described as “very smart” like David Scott, former UMass chancellor; Thomas Hanley, director of the Hampshire County Long-Term Care facility in Leeds; David Kielson of Chesterfield, treasurer of the board, and Gloria Fox, another UMass adminstrator.

 According to Feldman, 56, the problem he faced was that “I came in at the point when the damage was already done.”  Thus, he said, he could not point fingers, but board members apparently did not ask tough questions about agency matters because of their loyalty to the staff, especially the director Alan Sax and chief financial officer, Leon Drzewianowski.

“It’s easy, I guess, to talk yourself into seeing no problems if you trust and believe in the leadership,” Feldman said. If you acknowledge problems, you have to do something about them, which is the toughest part for a board, he said.

 This reluctance to dig into a financial mess of sloppy accounting, unreconciled checkbooks and mounting deficits, or demanding accountability had been ongoing, Feldman quickly learned. “Red flags” warning of financial troubles had been flying for the previous four or five years, Feldman said. Yet, assurances all was well were accepted without apparent challenge by board members.

 He recalls that near the beginning of his involvement while working on early childhood program budgets, “the numbers weren’t adding up” so the matter was brought to the board, which “did a cursory investigation,” yet concluded there was no problem. Same reaction when there were worries about a lack of “cash flow.”  It was said to be a temporary problem.  And the same attitude of not wanting to know the details prevailed when the federal government put restrictions on some programs because of concerns about the agency’s finances.

 At this point, Feldman draws Mayor Clare Higgins, his opponent in the upcoming city elections into the discussion, saying that even though she has a seat on the HCAC board she allowed that seat to remain vacant between the fall of 2003 and the spring of this year. “She chose not to get involved,” Feldman says, noting the irony that Mayor Higgins had been a long-time HCAC employee prior to her election as mayor six years ago.

  Pressure grew on the agency, including challenging questions by Head Start parents and news that pension funds had been tapped to pay agency bills. A couple of new members were added to the board and it was propelled “into the next orbit” of activity, he explained.

  In September, 2004 the board asked Feldman to step in to see if he could either salvage the agency or close it down. Because of his business background, Feldman also saw he had only those two options. Once the state made it clear it had no stomach for putting more money into HCAC and a consultant’s report concluded that the financial situation was a “train wreck,”—the agency’s losses had been under-reported by a factor of five times—Feldman says he moved ahead with the task of shutting down the agency. This entailed finding new homes for its programs and helping some employees to get new jobs.

   What about those who presided over this disaster, any punishment for them?  “One would hope, ” says Feldman.

 But following an investigation by the Northampton Police Department, the District Attorney and Attorney General’s office over several months, authorities concluded there was “no hard evidence” that the financial mess resulted in personal gain. Thus, no crime, just rank incompetence, which even when public funds are misspent and squandered, apparently is not a cause for legal action.

 Then turning to his campaign for mayor, Feldman rejects some suggestions that he is seeking an employment port in the aftermath of the HCAC storm. He says he has several job opportunities, which would pay him more money. Also, he dismisses the arguments that he might begin a political career at a lower level rather than aim for the top.

“Working my way up through government is not the best path,” he says. “It will only train you to act like other officials.” Coming from the outside, with his perspective and business background can be of benefit to government, he insists.

 He also is not defensive about the fact he is viewed as the pro-business candidate, citing his past involvement as an officer of the Chamber of Commerce. He is specifically critical of what he sees as city decision-making that does not fully take into account its impact on businesses. He cites, for example, problems that existed for a long time at the city parking garage and the time-consuming permitting process that slows down business activity.

   For small businesses, he said, “customer service is still a driving force … but it is not a driving force of government.” If businesses functioned the way government often does, he said,  “we’d be out of business.”

 In our conversation, he then sought to use his experience at HCAC to his advantage, saying that it had been good preparation for him because it brought home the importance of accountability, which means drawing people into the governing process.

 “When I look at the mayor, I see a gap in accountability,” Feldman says, claiming that those who disagree with the administration find themselves cut out or “ostracized.” He cited,  for example, two frequent critics of City Hall, Leslie Fraidstern and Daryl LaFleur. “These people are not asking dumb questions; I think you should give the guy a decent answer.”   The mayor, he says, sees the “the world in terms of adversaries, she sees contending forces fighting it out.” And, says Feldman, “she likes that because she can pull strings behind the scenes.”

 He sees a general reluctance by the city government “to deal with people who are asking the hair-raising questions.” He, on the other hand, says: “I have a completely different view of democracy which can unify people with different perspectives to bring them together … It’s not about fighting among special interests and who wins the battles”

 Ironically, Feldman said of himself: “I’m not conflict oriented.”

  Finally, he said another “fundamental” difference between him and the mayor is that he would be more aggressive in spuring economic development in the city, although he did not provide specific examples of how he would do that, other than cite the need for better planning that looks to the future. “I’m hard-wired for sustainability,” he said, taking note of the current planning buzzword in the city.

  Instead, the city finds itself jumping from issue to issue and crisis to crisis, he said, and even incremental steps toward promoting development are postponed.