Couture defends Ward

"Let’s also talk about the mother lode of all contract fiascos: the purchase by the City of the Downtown Mall. This contract was negotiated and entered into behind closed doors, in secret, at one or more meetings held at a local Forestville restaurant. Mr. Ward you were present, along with other members of the City Council and various support staff including the former mayor’s secretary who took notes. Mayor Stortz has the pictures and probably the notes.
Mr. Ward, if you think that the public doesn’t care about how you participated in these secret meetings, then come out and explain why it was okay to have those meetings in secret! You were involved and often took credit as the Deputy Mayor. Is this what we can expect from you? With all the contracts this city is about to enter, you have only demonstrated that you are capable of dealing behind closed doors out of sight from the public, whose trust is the mortar of public service. You were the proclaimed Deputy Mayor that spent 5.2 million taxpayer dollars without public input and that administration was thrown out of public office. Why should we expect anything different from you in the future? Or will you flip flop on this issue as well?” -- Art Mocabee, chairman of the Bristol Republican Party

Former Mayor Gerard Couture said Wednesday that Mocabee’s got it wrong.
Mocabee “talks a good game, but he just can’t play shortstop,” said Couture, who served as mayor from 2003 to 2005.
“I just want to clear the air. Artie was never a part of those meetings, those sessions we had,” Couture said.
On the other hand, he said, “our state legislators were there,” including state Rep. Bill Hamzy, a Plymouth Republican.
“Every meeting I ever had, Bill Hamzy was part of it,” Couture said.
He said he held many informational meetings with members of the community before seeking to buy the mall and ultimately got approval to purchase it for $5.3 million in March 2005 with the unanimous backing of the City Council and only one dissenter on the Board of Finance, Dolores Caper, who worried about how much it would eventually cost once everything was tallied up.
Couture said he met with Chamber of Commerce officials, businessmen such as Wally Barnes and Bob Fiondella, and many other to seek out their advice before proceeding with the mall purchase.
Fiondella told him that “in the end you won’t have any friends,” Couture recalled, which proved partially true.
But the meetings were never improper, Couture said.
“My council was kept abreast of these meetings but they were never a part of them. They were never any illegal meetings,” he said.
“It’s not fair to Arthur Ward,” Couture said, to hold him any more accountable than any other official who supported the mall’s purchase, including state Rep. Ron Burns, Hamzy and many Republicans.
“I think we did the right thing,” Couture said.
He said he used to keep Burns and Hamzy up to date with regular Monday meetings “to make sure they knew what we were doing.”
Burns “was one of the guys who stuck by me from day one” because he saw the vision embodied in the downtown plan Couture pushed, the former mayor said. Burns was elected to the state House last year after serving on the council during Couture’s stint as mayor.
Couture said that he feels sad that some politicians “sold their souls” in 2005 to get reelected by distancing themselves from the administration’s effort to revitalize the mall site, but he hopes everyone recognizes that the mall buy gave the city a chance to remake its downtown.
After six terms on the council and a term as mayor, “I got a chance to do something that everyone was waiting to happen,” Couture said, and he took it.
Everyone wanted to do something with the mall, he said, and tackling it had been part of every campaign for years. “Finally, we got a chance. We got a commitment from the state,” he said, so he plunged forward with a plan that he still believes would work out.
“The city never, never was going to lose that money,” he said. “We would eventually get our investment back.”
With Couture’s plan for a field house, community theater and more now off the table, the ex-mayor said, “you have to start from scratch all over again” because there’s no proposal for the state to consider.
He said he hopes the new downtown corporation will move swiftly to come up with something that would help Bristol.
Meanwhile, though, Couture said he couldn’t stay on the sidelines any longer and watch Ward get beat up for things he never did.
“I’ve got to defend my people and everyone who was involved in what we did,” Couture said.

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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com