Schivarelli’s Beef
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“The evidence,” the promo shows Zekman telling Schivarelli, “seems to indicate you’re cheating the city.”
There’s no response from Schivarelli in the promo, which quickly cuts to Zekman investigating unsanitary restaurants. But now Schivarelli says, “I made myself available any hour, day or night. It was down to a point where people would leave messages at Demon Dogs at ten at night and I would call them back. And everyone in the ward knew me. I mean, I was here when the ward was still partially almost a ghetto-type situation in some parts in 1971, and I always made myself available. On nights when there was a snowstorm or any problem came up, I was there.”
Vroustouris’s office investigates between 1,500 and 2,000 cases a year. It forwards its reports to the mayor’s office and to the departments of Law and Personnel. When Vroustouris’s office supports charges against a city employee and Law and Personnel approve them, the case is sent to the employee’s department for disciplinary action. But what if that employee were to retire?
“It seems to us odd,” says Schivarelli’s lawyer, Alan Mandel, “that the best example they could find of her investigative sleuthing was a piece that was 18 months old. In our view, they should have found a different person and another example of her fine work that was more recent than this. And it’s pretty telling that they didn’t.”
–Sridhar Pappu
