Courant Editorial: “Sen. Fasano Should be Congratulated”

December 8, 2016

Editorial as it appeared in the Hartford Courant

Frank Farricker, the interim president of the Connecticut Lottery Corporation, should know better than to encourage lottery board members to keep “under wraps” a probe into a lottery game.

But that’s what he did in early August, while officials were negotiating the departure of then-CEO Anne Noble. The Connecticut Lottery Corporation had come under fire for its “5 Card Cash” game. Several retailers had been arrested for allegedly cheating the game. The state Department of Consumer Protection was investigating how lottery officials had handled the scandal.

“We will use best efforts to keep the DCP investigation under wraps, meaning we will not ask DCP to further the investigation and we will ask them not to release the report,” said Mr. Farricker, at the time the chairman of the lottery board, wrote in an email to three fellow lottery board members.

Mr. Farricker’s language was a blatant attempt to hide — if not explicitly halt — an investigation by a public agency. That’s reprehensible.

Why Hide Information?

The better move would have been to stop the negotiations with Ms. Noble and publicly explain why: Because “DCP seemed to indicate that they could possibly take some action against Ms. Noble,” Mr. Farricker said last week, when asked by Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano to explain.

It’s reasonable to think that the overly generous severance package she eventually received might not have been so generous if “some action” had been taken against Ms. Noble.

Asked why the board didn’t alert the public to the possibility that the DCP was considering taking action against Ms. Noble, Mr. Farricker told The Courant last week: “We were not eager or interested in having a long drawn-out press-filled transition,” which would have been “highly damaging” to the state and would have affected “the integrity of the game.”

He added: “There is a very large body of data that shows that when the lottery … becomes a story, that story greatly affects the confidence and interest of our players and the game.”

In other words, Mr. Farricker sought to keep the investigation secret because it could have discouraged people from buying lottery tickets.

That’s not a good reason to hide information the public ought to have about a gambling operation sanctioned by the state. The deal the corporation reached with Ms. Noble is costing taxpayers quite a bit of money. She will remain a highly paid “senior adviser” until Jan. 31, when she becomes eligible for lifetime retirement benefits, and then she will receive $150,000 over six months as a consultant. She also received a $21,220 “incentive” bonus. That’s a lot of lottery tickets.

Spirit Of Open Government

“I am completely proud of all the decisions I’ve made, and I’d do them again,” Mr. Farricker said. “We followed every rule by spirit and letter.”

Wrong. Trying to keep an investigation “under wraps” is contrary to the spirit of open government. Even quasi-public agencies like the Connecticut Lottery Corporation are subject to open-government laws such as the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

As a volunteer member of the board, Mr. Farricker could be excused for not fully understanding his role as a public servant, but his continued insistence that there was nothing wrong with seeking to keep an investigation “under wraps” does not bode well for his future as an advocate of the public trust.

Sen. Fasano should be congratulated for his dogged pursuit of how Ms. Noble’s deal came together, and Mr. Farricker should have been transparent about it from the start.