By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer
—
Cooperation between TD Bank and the city on the investigation of what happened to $5,000 in missing beach parking revenues has broken down, according to city officials, who are now threatening legal action.
"The bank has yet to follow up on their commitment to have the appropriate bank officers get in touch with the city," Mayor Carolyn Kirk said Tuesday.
"If we don't hear back by the end of the week, we will escalate with a written correspondence to proper bank officials," she added. "We will pursue a course of action different from what we are trying to accomplish cooperatively."
Money collected from visitors at the city's beach parking lots began disappearing in June. First, managers suspected sloppiness or theft by beach workers was to blame, and one worker was fired on July 2.
But during the busy Fourth of July weekend, the discrepancies between what was being collected and what was ending up in the city's account with TD Bank grew.
That prompted Gloucester detectives and Treasurer Jeffrey Towne to conduct an experiment: each independently counted the cash coming from the beach before dropping it in the deposit box.
What they found was that the amount deposited was not matching the total credited by TD Bank to the account.
Since then, TD Bank agreed to perform an internal investigation running parallel to the probe conducted by Gloucester detectives.
But neither investigation has broken the case.
Towne said that surveillance tapes had shown unspecified questionable activity and lax security controls at the bank, but nothing that could prove conclusively what had happened to the city's money.
Police since requested additional video tapes; it is unclear what they revealed.
Meanwhile, TD Bank has been silent about the results of its internal investigation and is not returning Towne's phone calls. The last known contact between the bank and city over the missing money was at the end of July
"I haven't heard anything from them," Towne said.
Patrick Anderson can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3455, or panderson@gloucestertimes.com.
