Cloud said he was sorry for using his public email to push a private investment.
After WNPR reported that Hartford city Treasurer Adam Cloud used his work email to steer private investment to the Back9Network -- a business that had financial ties to his family -- Cloud has issued an apology.
"In hindsight, I should have used better judgment for the manner and way in which I communicated with Vista Equity Partners in 2011 regarding the Back 9 Network," Cloud wrote in a statement sent from his attorney to WNPR. "For that, I apologize to the citizens of Hartford."
Vista Equity Partners is a private equity firm that eventually got around $20 million of city retiree pension funds to invest. But while Cloud said he was sorry for using his public email to push a private investment, his statement does not mention the fact that his family was financially linked to the golf network. At the time Cloud reached out to Vista in 2011, his brother was the company's paid lobbyist and his father was poised to be its landlord.
Instead, Cloud said he was proud to have promoted a Hartford business.
"I am unapologetic of my enthusiastic promotion of the great City of Hartford and its businesses. I have been, am, and always will be an advocate for encouraging the growth of and supporting business within the City," Cloud wrote. "I am equally enthusiastic about encouraging outside investment and business to come to Hartford. I do not believe I would be doing my job properly if I act otherwise."
Earlier this week, Common Cause -- a national public interest advocacy organization -- called for an ethics investigation regarding the matter. Karen Hobert Flynn, the organization’s senior vice president for program and strategy, also called for closing the loophole in the city’s ethics code that permits this sort of activity.
The state code of ethics says that “no public official or state employee shall use his public office or position... to obtain financial gain for himself, his spouse, child, child’s spouse, parent, brother or sister or a business with which he is associated.”
The city code is apparently weaker. Flynn says the city’s code of ethics only applies to matters “under consideration before the individual in the individual’s official capacity."
Earlier this year, investigators from the federal Securities and Exchange Commission served a subpoena on city hall for Cloud’s campaign finance filings and related correspondence. WNPR then asked for and received that same correspondence. The email between Cloud and Vista was one of the documents turned over to the SEC.
