Perez's New Job

Former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez is working as a consultant at an AIDS advocacy agency that gets nearly half a million dollars a year from the city. WNPR’s Jeff Cohen reports.

 

Perez resigned his office in June after he was convicted of corruption.  Since mid-August, he's been working as a 15-hour-a-week consultant for the Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition. His job is to help figure out how to implement an HIV/AIDS strategy in Connecticut.

 

John Merz is the coalition’s executive director.  Even though he hadn’t been in the market for a consultant before he hired the former mayor, Merz says hiring Perez just made sense. He calls him a good strategist, and – given his circumstances – he’s a bargain.

 

“Somebody of his caliber is not somebody I generally can afford to pay. He was in a position where he can work for a non-profit on a non-profit's consultant fee rate which does not get anybody rich.  So, you know, I really saw it as taking advantage of an opportunity.  And he’s a good guy. I mean, he has always cared for the underdog.”

 

Merz  says that the money his agency gets from the city goes directly to pay for housing and services for people living with HIV and AIDS.  And he wants this to be clear:

 

“It’s not going to Eddie Perez.”

 

City manager David Panagore says it doesn’t appear that Perez’s new job violates the city’s ethics ordinance.  But since Merz’s agency is a city subcontractor, Panagore says the city has a few questions.

 

“We’re just going to have a conversation with CARC about, if he was retained, how he was retained, what were the qualifications, what was the process.”

 

Panagore later said he had that conversation with Merz and he's largely satisfied that Perez's job doesn't pose a problem.

 

Merz knows that what remains is the question of whether it makes good sense to hire a man in Perez's situation.  The former mayor was sentenced to three years in prison and is free on appeal.

 

”I think that the good outweighs the bad here.  I mean, certainly folks can impugn our reputation because we did that. My major concern is, how do we advance the AIDS agenda in Connecticut?  And I think that he can help me do that.”

 

And, Merz says, Perez is doing a good job.

 

For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.