State Auditor to review Revere DPW study bid

REVERE – A second state investigative agency is weighing a city request to investigate the Public Works Department a month after two employees resigned over bribery admissions.The City Council asked the state Auditor to investigate the department after a heated Jan. 21 council debate over DPW operations. Ward 4 Councilor George Rotondo spar-red with Mayor Thomas Ambrosino and colleagues at that meeting and another this week over his call for a review of department inventory and security practices.Auditor Joseph DeNucci?s spokesman Glenn Briere said the agency is reviewing a letter City Clerk John Henry sent on Jan. 22 and another from Ambrosino.?We will get more information from the city and make a determination of where to go from there,” Briere told The Item. “The Auditor wants to be helpful.”State law gives cities and towns authority to request a state audit of municipal operations, but Briere said the community must help foot the bill for the review.He said Everett paid over $40,000 for a recent audit and said the Auditor?s office will review the scope of work requested by Revere and prepare a cost estimate before responding to local officials.After nearly a year of speculation about alleged misconduct involving local drain laying contracts, the state Ethics Commission on Dec. 11 issued a show cause order stating DPW Chief Foreman Joseph Maglione sought and accepted illegal bribes and gratuities.Maglione is on paid administrative leave and presumed to be innocent of the commission allegations pending the outcome of a pending Ethics hearing.Former department workers Randy Adamson and Anthony Giannino Jr. resigned in December after the commission fined them $8,000 each for violating state conflict of interest laws by paying bribes to Maglione and for doing private drain laying work.The bribery case centers on the city?s policy of licensing drain layers to install and maintain pipes connecting homes and businesses to city-owned pipes.The city does not install these connection pipes; instead it maintains a list of roughly a dozen licensed private drain layers.?Adamson and Giannino testified that Maglione approached them in 2002 and asked for $200-$250 for every new water and/or sewer service installation they performed. Between 2002 and summer 2005, they gave Maglione a total of $3,000-$4,000 regarding these installations,” the commission stated in its show cause order on the bribery case.Rotondo insists DPW inventory control procedures, equipment purchases, fuel allocations practices and other operation need to be reviewed by the state.He will have another chance to raise his concerns Monday during the council public works committee meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. in the Council Chamber.