Press Releases

WITH ADMINISTRATION UNDER FEDERAL & STATE INVESTIGATION

Dems Challenge Carcieri to return campaign cash from no-bid contributors

Lynch questions what influence high-level GOP donors had in awarding DOT contracts

PAWTUCKET- As Federal and State authorities investigate potential improprieties within Governor Carcieri's Department of Transportation, Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairman William Lynch is calling on the governor to immediately return nearly $5,000 in campaign contributions Carcieri has received from donors who profited from the awarding of no-bid contracts numbering in the tens of millions of dollars.

"At least two of the people directly associated with companies who stood to financially benefit from the awarding of the DOT's no-bid contracts have made significant contributions to the Carcieri campaign," Lynch said. "With federal and state authorities investigating how and why these contracts were awarded, there appears to be a glaring conflict of interest, and that is why I am calling on Governor Carcieri to immediately return these contributions," Lynch said.

In today's Providence Journal, Governor Carcieri cites, as an example of how business was being conducted within his DOT, a 1982 contract awarded to Gordon R. Archibald, Inc. for the Quonset Point Improved Access Design having been extended 233 times since then, and valuing more than $20 million.

Rhode Island campaign finance reports available online through the board of elections Website indicate that Gordon R. Archibald, who lists his employer as Gordon R. Archibald, Inc. has made sizeable contributions to the Carcieri campaign totaling nearly $3,000 between 2004 and 2007.

Mr. Archibald is also listed as a contributor to Karenlee Bernardo, the now infamous $102 thousand-dollar-a-year typist at the DOT, who ran as a Republican Warwick City Council candidate in 2002.

Another no-bid donor who "maxed-out" to Carcieri on two separate occasions was Leslie A. Giardino, who wrote the Carcieri campaign a check for $1,000 first on November 23, 2005 and then again on July 20, 2006. According to public campaign finance reports, Ms. Giardino lists her employer as Plexus Corporation - the same company that was awarded a $9 million no-bid DOT contract in August of 2005, two months before Ms. Giardino wrote her first check to the Carcieri campaign.

"The revelation that the Governor took contributions from companies looking to backdoor the public bidding process is not consistent with his assertion that he only recently learned of the way his DOT was conducting business," Chairman Lynch said.

"I'm concerned that these contributions to the Carcieri campaign may have lead to undue influence at the DOT and that's why he must immediately return the money."

-30-

<< View all Press Releases