IAFF: Kelly’s Year?
How “Edzo” showed Schaitberger the door
A year ago Ed Kelly lit the fuse.
The resulting explosion ended Harold Schaitberger’s president-for-life tenure at the IAFF.
Kelly’s black powder was the residue of a few of Schaitberger’s shady deals.
But did Schaitberger hold the fuse while Kelly struck the match?
When Kelly informed the board of his concerns, Schaitberger hit back hard resulting in Kelly’s lengthy memorandum refuting him, putting the charges and proof in writing.
That document found its way to me and others, all but ensuring Kelly would have a broad audience for his campaign.
Kelly revealed a little known employee pension which Schaitberger had been improperly taking while an elected officer at the IAFF, a double-dip tour de force.
Then there was the over-payments to a deferred compensation benefit program by several IAFF employees; the Internal Revenue Service did not take kindly to that news resulting in the disqualification of the plan.
Schaitberger wormed his way out of internal responsibility for the pension with invaluable assistance from 10th district vice president Frank Lima who will now replace Kelly as the IAFF’s chief financial officer. (Yes, that’s what counts for reform at the IAFF.)
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the IAFF but just how we got on Justice’s radar is a story yet to be told in full.
It seems likely that Kelly (and his IAFF staff) used Republican operatives to gain the notice of officials at Trump’s Justice Department to get the ball rolling. If so, it will be interesting to know what promises were made or i.o.u.s created because that kind of help usually comes with a political price tag.
Would it have been a hard sell at Justice under Barr? Trump hates the IAFF, so a chance to give Schaitberger heartburn or worse would seem both welcome and easy, especially if a top insider was providing the details.
Members of the IAFF board are furious with Kelly for going outside the IAFF in the very same way the Mafia hates a rat.
Speaking of rats, it was Ed Kelly who publicly labeled 7th district vice president Ricky Walsh a rat when Walsh was alleged to have dabbled in ethical reform; Kelly was still singing the Schaitberger tune when he did it.
Is Kelly a “rat” for going to the Feds to out Schaitberger?
Or do different rules apply to him?
Does it make a difference if Kelly’s motive was really to oust Schaitberger rather than to reform the IAFF?
Time will surely tell.
By the way, Walsh wound up endorsing Kelly in his race for general president; let’s hope he (and others) don’t have cause to regret their actions.
Kelly beat his Schaitberger-inspired opponent Mahlon Mitchell by 32,000 out of about 260,000; a swing of just 16,000 would have meant a Mitchell victory.
Kelly got Schaitberger out of the running but Schaitberger seriously blunted a Kelly juggernaut by backing Mitchell in a big way.
Over the past year the IAFF has spent close to a million dollars on various investigations into Kelly’s initial allegations, Schaitberger’s pensions, etc.
In a third-world banana republic move, the investigation results were delayed until after the convention and were then restricted to limited viewing; hardly a signal of reform, openness or honesty.
And the investigation cost nearly as much as the misconduct proving the adage that the cure really can be worse than the disease.
The IAFF is a target of the Justice Department investigation and they have retained a law firm to represent them.
If the investigation focus is on Schaitberger, he now has incentive to hire a first-rate criminal counsel and to tell-all to Justice in a bid to avoid charges or sanctions. No bid contracts to friends, absurdly lavish spending and no-show jobs should all be on the table.
Who knows, maybe Shady Schait would outdo Edzo Kelly in the call to the almighty altar of ethical reform.
But the incoming Biden administration could put the skids to a federal investigation of the IAFF. Martin Walsh, the newly minted Secretary of Labor in the Biden administration, is Boston’s former mayor and presumably well known to Kelly. Biden and Walsh would both do well to let the various investigations proceed apace without regard for favor or relationships, past or present.
By and large, very large indeed, IAFF vice presidents are hoggish and wholly complicit. They have aided and abetted the swindling of the membership while Schaitberger dumped slop into their troughs at a record pace for a nonstop feeding session.
Many of the vice presidents worked to beat Kelly to avert a bad case of potential gravy-train-interruptus and he will be under great pressure to keep the slop spigot wide open.
It is supposed that there will be turnover, perhaps a lot, at the manager and senior manager level as Kelly takes over.
Prospective new hires beware: anyone familiar with Kelly’s treatment of Fortuna in the trustee race and Kelly’s notion of loyalty would do well to realize this is not a guy who will have your back.
Is Kelly serious about reform? His cringe-worthy and last second resuscitation of Mark Ouellette to run for another trustee term says otherwise. Ouellette has presided over the culture of financial chicanery at the IAFF; keeping him around is like putting Donald Trump in charge of fact-checking.
The Feds should hold IAFF trustees personally accountable for their longstanding dereliction of duty.
Pete Gorman, former president of FDNY Fire Officers Local 854 and longtime IAFF chief of staff, a leader of proven integrity, gives some sage and simple advice to Kelly and Lima, steps to prove to us that they mean what they say.
It’s as simple as that.
