BY JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — The state Ethics Commission will investigate whether Mayor Susan D. Menard violated the state’s ethics code through her administration’s lease of police motorcycles from her son-in-law’s Framingham Harley-Davidson dealership.

The panel made that decision in closed session Tuesday after reviewing an ethics complaint filed by Edward M. Roy, a retired Woonsocket Police detective sergeant and city resident.
Dianne Leyden, a Commission attorney and case prosecutor, said the panel’s members found in closed session that the “allegations in the complaint were sufficient to constitute a knowing and willful violation,” and as result approved a full investigation of the matter.
That step will allow Leyden, serving as prosecutor for the Commission and staff member, Steve Branch, as investigator, to subpoena witnesses and review records related to the allegations.
The investigation will allow Leyden and Branch to determine whether an adjudication hearing should be held by commission on the allegations against Menard at a future date or whether the charges raised should be dismissed with prejudice. That step would prevent the complaint from being rekindled in the future without a significant discovery of new facts in the matter.
Although considering the complaint filed by Roy, Leyden said the commission would not comment or act on the merits of the case until the investigation was complete.
The agency has 180 days to complete an investigation of an accepted complaint from the date it is filed and can approve two extensions of that period if needed, she noted.
Roy’s complaint was processed by the Commission on March 6 and that would allow the panel until Sept. 2 to come up with a finding if no extensions were needed, she noted.
Menard has announced she plans to retire from her seventh, two-year term as mayor this June as a result of the continuing local criticism of her administration and a desire to spend more time with her two grown children and their families.
Leyden said Menard’s departure from the mayor’s position would not have a bearing on the open investigation.
“As far as we are concerned, we would continue the investigation, absolutely,” she said of the mayor’s pending departure from the post.
While removal from office is one of the options available to the commission in rendering a decision of violation, Leyden said the panel more typically imposes fines for violations of up to $25,000 per count as permitted under the code.
Participants in Ethic Commission adjudication procedures can be represented by legal council and put forward arguments on the case’s merit.
Menard has declined comment on the pending Ethics review.
Roy on Tuesday said he was not surprised that the matter was going forward to an investigation given the information he was able to collect in submitting his allegation of impropriety.
“I wasn’t about to file a frivolous complaint,” he said. “I did some research beforehand to make sure that I filed a legitimate one,” Roy said.
Roy, who retired from the department with 25 years service, suspected a possible problem with the police motorcycles after hearing former Police Chief Michael L.A. Houle discussing them publicly in the city.
An unsuccessful candidate in the November city council race, Roy has continued to attend Council meetings and follow city issues in the aftermath of that contest.
After hearing Houle’s comments on the acquisitions, Roy said he learned that the motorcycles in question had been leased from Paramount Harley Davison of Framingham, a firm operated by the Mayor’s son-in-law, James Pilavin, and other Pilavin family members.
In his complaint, Roy said he found no record of a Woonsocket Community Development Block Grant award for the $10,000 annual cost of leasing the four Harley’s as Houle had indicated in his statements on the matter.
That led Roy to question the lease arrangement before the City Council and he subsequently learned that while the city had been eligible to purchase police vehicles through the Greater Boston Police Council competitive bid through a contracted dealer, the city’s new cycles had instead come from Paramount.
Roy also voiced concern over the fact James Pilavin had made campaign donations to Menard in 2005 and 2007.
Roy said he also found the city made payments for the four motorcycles under contracts running for two years as opposed to the one-year agreements, Menard was reported to have stated they were acquired under. The motorcycle acquisitions from Paramount and the Pilavins’ Pawtucket Harley dealership, Precision Harley Davison, may date back to 2001, according Roy.
That process for leasing the police motorcycles, given Menard’s role as Mayor and Public Safety Director resulted in an “egregious violation of the Rhode Island General Laws, specially, Title 36, Chapter 36-14 Code of Ethics,” Roy charged in his complaint.
Roy has submitted copies of city vouchers for the payments made to Paramount as part of his complaint as well as information on the motorcycle company and its principals.
Roy said Tuesday he will now await the conclusion of the commission review to see what comes of the complaint. The former police officer said he filed the matter with the commission the week before Houle, Deputy Chief Richard Dubois, and Menard all announced their intentions to retire from their posts, and did so only to inform city residents how City Hall was being operated.
“I’m very pleased it is going forward but I didn’t file this for myself,” he said. “I filed it because the residents of the City of Woonsocket need to know that City Hall is being run properly,” he said.