Court Transcript from the oral argument in the Bilello veto matter

Below is an excerpt from Thursday hearing regarding the Bilello veto matter

THE COURT: So the purpose of today's proceeding is to have a brief oral argument, I believe counsel requested, with respect to this matter involving Mr. Michael Bilello. So I am happy to hear briefly from each side. You don't really need to repeat a lot of what is in your briefs. I have the briefs, or your written submissions. But if you want to touch on some high points, that is fine.

MR. WALSH: I think, without hesitation, that the notion that a member of this union and the top fiduciary of this union can willfully lie in an investigation conducted by an appointee of the district court is appalling. I assign great significance to that specification. When Mr. Petrillo says Mr. Bilello is not superman, it is revealed he is not even a careful man. One of the questions which we asked all of the candidates for EST was whether they were familiar with the bylaws that had been implemented in August of 2011 and there were people who I did not approve to run for office because they could not say that they were familiar with those bylaws.

In Section 21, the question of the allocation of those payments to the welfare fund, what Mr. Petrillo talks about in that interim report was my strong recommendation that the welfare fund needed money, that the costs were excessive and any bit of income was a good thing. The document that Mr. Bilello, Mr. Cavanaugh signed and submitted to the benefit funds in June of 2012 was never submitted to me for review. I could indeed have made the argument that they failed to follow the stipulation and order by giving me prior notice, and the entire framework of the stipulation and order is based, with respect to the District Council, on the giving of prior notice. There are too many moving parts. I was not given notice of that unilateral application of asserted authority by Mr. Bilello. If I had been given notice of it, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

But as we pointed out in the papers, I am not counsel to the District Council, I am not an advisor, and I am certainly not there to tell them to watch out for every pothole that they may be about to drive over in their daily affairs. The fact is that over $900,000 was allotted to the welfare fund, which was not money that the welfare fund had to give back should the nun pro tunc vote have gone the other way. And if the delegates had decided they wanted that money as income, the chances are they would not have gotten it back. There was no obligation for the welfare fund to return that money.

With respect to the reading of the minutes of the funds, it is easy to characterize that as a minor matter, but it is not a minor matter. The executive committee of the District Council needs to be informed about the affairs of the benefit funds because this union is in a struggle. The District Council is out front trying to organize non-union companies, trying to organize non-union workers. They need to be apprised of the urgent problems confronting the benefit funds, as this court knows and as we have discussed on many occasions the problems confronting the benefits funds. I attended many of those executive committee meetings where it was apparently much more important that correspondents from the Boy Scouts and various district councils and local unions seeking to fill tables at dinner dances be read to those trustees, to those executive committee members, and I think the priorities were all wrong in that regard. It is easy to characterize each one of these specifications in a certain way.

The reality is that the careful EST, the careful fiduciary consults with counsel. The general counsel for the District Council has an office right next to the EST. He is available basically five days a week and certainly 24 hours a day by telephone. If Mr. Bilello had been inclined to consult him, perhaps we would not be here today.

7.18.13 U.S. v. D.C.