Passero calls complaint against him political
New London — The executive assistant to the mayor, Tambria Moore, filed a harassment complaint with the city’s personnel office and with the Board of Ethics last month alleging City Councilor and mayoral candidate Michael Passero used a degrading expletive to refer to her.
Passero denies the claim and called the complaint a “political smear by a desperate political campaign.” Passero is the Democratic nominee for mayor and is being challenged by Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio in a Sept. 16 Democratic primary.
The alleged incident occurred on Aug. 7, while Passero was speaking to Meghan Peck, the former interim administrative assistant to the City Council whose office is adjacent to Moore’s.
Passero allegedly was talking about a letter to the editor written by Moore that had led to a spike in hits to his campaign website.
The Day obtained a copy of a six-paragraph investigative report from Personnel Administrator Tina Collins through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Collins spoke to Peck as a witness.
“It was (Peck’s) impression from (Passero’s) non-verbal gestures that Mr. Passero was speaking about Ms. Moore,” Collins wrote. “She stated that the door to her office was open and Mr. Passero was in the doorway at this time. Mr. Passero was talking about the number of additional hits to his website as a result of Ms. Moore’s letter to the editor and bobbed his head in the direction of Ms. Moore’s office while using the expletive.”
Moore said Wednesday she overheard the exchange.
Collins, in a report dated Sept. 8, concluded in her report that any comments made by Passero were not related to his position as a city firefighter. Her recommendation to Finizio was to forward the complaint to the City Council.
City Council President Wade Hyslop said he distributed copies of the complaint to members of the City Council at Tuesday’s meeting.
Hyslop said it was unclear at this point how the council might handle the complaint and he planned to seek advice from fellow councilors and from the city attorney.
Board of Ethics Chairman K. Robert Lewis said ethics complaints are confidential unless the board makes a finding of probable cause.
The board’s most recent probable cause finding was a complaint against Finizio from Reid Burdick, who claims Finizio’s public statement accusing him of making homophobic comments was inappropriate.
Moore denied the complaint was politically motivated, saying she decided it was time to “take a stand for how women are treated in the workplace.”
Passero said his campaign had stuck to the issues of how to move the city forward and “would not be dragged into the gutter,” before declining further comment.
Finizio declined comment, citing the determination that the complaint was not made against Passero in his capacity as a city employee.
Twitter: @SmittyDay
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