Records show BRT worker sold parts to SEPTA on company time

While overseeing property assessors in September at the city Board of Revision of Taxes, Barry Mescolotto also made time for his family business - selling train parts to SEPTA.

At 10:04 a.m. one Thursday, he e-mailed SEPTA purchasing agent James Richeal, stating that Trans-lectric Supply Inc. wanted to submit a quote. Richeal responded that the deadline had passed but might be reopened in a few days.

Just after noon, Mescolotto sent a short thank-you. Two hours later, he e-mailed another SEPTA official about a mixup in labeling another shipment. "Sorry for the confusion," he wrote.

E-mail and payroll records obtained by The Inquirer show that on at least 16 days over the last two years, Mescolotto bid on SEPTA contracts and handled other business matters for Trans-lectric on days he was working at the BRT.

Mescolotto also helped straighten out assessment errors for the transit agency last year after SEPTA's lawyers said some of its properties were being wrongly taxed, the e-mails show.

As a government agency, SEPTA does not have to pay property taxes - except when it collects rent from tenants.

Mescolotto wrote to one SEPTA attorney in an e-mail in November that BRT staff members had "missed some of the past years" on assessment forms, adding: "We will have them cleaned up. Happy Thanksgiving!"

In an interview, Mescolotto acknowledged sending e-mails or faxes while working at the BRT but said he did not do it often and confined such activity to personal time.

"I do get a lunch hour when I'm entitled to spend time with myself, and I do get a break in the morning and afternoon I'm entitled to," Mescolotto said. "I really don't make a habit of that. From time to time, there may have been some e-mails or whatever."

He also said he saw no conflict in his dual roles as a businessman bidding on SEPTA contracts and as a property assessor helping to determine the agency's tax bill.

"To me, I don't see where there is a conflict," he said. "They are worlds and worlds apart. They don't ever cross. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other."

Zack Stalberg, president of the Committee of Seventy, the nonprofit civic watchdog, took a different view of Mescolotto's dual role.

"There's certainly the appearance of a conflict, and as long as there's the appearance, there's the possibility of a real conflict," he said.