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DOC KET N O: AAN-CV-08-500 4821 -S : SUPERIOR COURT

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a CITY OF DERBY : J.D. OF MILFORD
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V. : AT MILFORD

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MARC GAROFALO : SEPTEMBER ,2009
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d AFFIDAVIT OF MARC GAROFALO
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MARC GAROFALO, having been duly sworn, does depose and state:
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L l am over eighteen years of age and understand and believe in
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a the obligation of an oath.
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2. I am the defendant in this action and the facts set forth in this

o affidavit are within my personal knowledge.


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3. I was the Mayor of the city of Derby for two terms, beginning in

1997, for eight years. I was defeated for reelection in November, 2005 and
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vacated the Mayor's office on December 3, 2005.
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4. The last weeks of my administration were very hectic, as the
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election campaign ended and I immediately had to engage my energies on
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lll vacating my office and cleaning out my desk and personal belongings, which
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had accumulated over eight years of very busy public service. My staff and l,
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o already exhausted from a long and vigorous campaign, had to clear out our
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z offices by the end of the first week in December, as the new mayor would be
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sworn in then and take over.

5. lt was obvious that we would not be able to review all the

documents on our personal computers during that brief period, in order to


only delete those we were absolutely sure were of no value. The

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accumulation of e-mails, trivia, and other daily flotsam over the years was
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z immense. I decided therefore that my aides (Dina Weissman, Rick Lutz, Ann

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DelVecchio and Ralph Marcucio) and I would have the hard drives on our
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o personal office computers "scrubbed." This would allow us to dispose of all


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the accumulated e-mails and other transient communications of the past


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several years without an arduous and impossible process of reviewing each
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o one.
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T 6. During my administration, since the computers were installed, we

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had been functioning under the following policy: any document that was
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arguably needed in hard copy was to be printed out as soon as it was read,
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a and filed in a paper file in the appropriate office. Therefore, it was my belief
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that the files on our office computers did not contain any documents that were
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! needed elsewhere, or required to be kept by the Freedom of lnformation Act.
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7 . When I assumed the office of Mayor in 1997, the computer
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gJ system we now enjoy did not exist. lnstead there was single desktop
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computer available for the use of the Mayor; I inherited it from outgoing Mayor
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a Alan Schlesinger. When I began using the machine it had been purged of its
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z documents, just as I elected to do in 2005 with the computers used by me
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and my two top assistants.

B. There was no written policy on such matters in effect at that

time and I used my discretion to decide this was a reasonable way to prepare
the computers for use by the incoming staff. There is no question that the

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a innumerable e-mails and useless documents would have had to be deleted by
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z the successor users, since they were and are of no value to the current
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administration except as a political football.
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9. Philip Robertson stated at his deposition that he rummaged
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through the documents that were recovered under orders from Mayor Staffieri
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and located notes on negotiations with a contractor which, in his opinion,
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a would have been helpful when the administration first took over. I find this to
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be absurd and pretextual. The fact is that during the several weeks between

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a the election and the swearing-in of Mayor Staffieri, neither he nor anyone
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from his team contacted me in order to seek any briefing regarding ongoing
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tu negotiations or any other matters related to transition. Therefore there was


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no reason for me to believe that the new administration had any interest
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p whatsoever in my work as Mayor or my advice or input regarding any ongoing


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issues.
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o 10. The cleanout of our City Hall offices was lengthy, laborious and
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t tedious process, done under deadline in a state of near-exhaustion.
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J Decisions had to be made and I made all of them as intelligently and
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z judiciously as I could. The backup tapes for the subject computers ended up
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in a box of my personal effects because someone (not me) threw them there

without my knowledge. I believed then, and believe now, that the decision to

purge those files was within my authority as Mayor and have never been
presented with any statute, ordinance, official policy or enactment that

contradicts my position.

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Duly signed and sworn to in my presence thisel'n d"y or.&i"ffi{n/009,

Notary Public /
Commissioner of the Superior Court
:ANDICE CALDWELL
NATARY PITBLIC
!,4y coMMtsstoN aHfiEs FEB.28,Zlt4

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