Top jobs require checking every box
Almost a decade ago, when Bridgeport found itself the unlikely center of a nationwide debate on school reform, the superintendent chosen to lead that effort found himself questioned in court over his credentials.
It was a civil suit back then, not a criminal case. Still, albeit in a very different context, the question of credential requirements raised in the charges against now- former Police Chief Armando Perez in Bridgeport brings to mind the case of Paul Vallas, a nationally recognized school superintendent whose own time in the city was nearly undone over what critics called an insufficient resume.
The lesson, then as now, is that important jobs like police chief and superintendent have credential requirements for a reason. You don’t get to put someone in a job with that level of influence just because of who they know, or because someone thinks they’d do a great job. You have to check all the boxes.
On the surface, the stories of Vallas and Perez don’t have much in common. Vallas had been a superintendent of schools in major cities across the country — Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans. His style rankled people at every stop, but there was never any question that he could run a school system.
Still, his critics believed he lacked the specific credential required in Connecticut, which would have precluded him from holding the position in Bridgeport. It was only because of a suit filed by retired judge and local activist Carmen Lopez that the issue came to a head.
Initially, a judge ruled against Vallas, and said he had to leave his position. That decision was overturned by the state Supreme Court, but by then Vallas had already packed his bags to return to Illinois. The crux of the case came down to a perfunctory course at the University of Connecticut that Vallas himself purportedly helped design and that granted him the certification he needed to lead a school system in this state. Critics charged, though the Supreme Court disagreed, that this counted as rigging the system.
The criminal case against Perez and the since- resigned acting Personnel Director David Dunn is one that alleged a literal rigging of the system. According to charges laid out by federal officials, to which the pair have each pleaded guilty, Dunn and Perez conspired to see that Perez was ranked in the top three candidates for the job of police chief, making him eligible to be offered the job on a permanent basis. It was well- known that Perez was close with Mayor Joe Ganim, though both insisted at the time that Perez had rightfully earned his spot among the candidates, and Ganim has not been accused of wrongdoing.
According to the charges, though, in a 2018 phone call with one of the panelists charged with ranking the candidates, “Dunn stated that the Mayor wanted Perez to be ‘ in the top three.’ Panelist- 1 understood Dunn to be asking Panelist- 1 to score Perez higher and/ or to influence other panelists to do the same.”
Police chief and superintendent are two of the most powerful jobs in municipal governance. While some people can accept patronage as a fact of local politics — someone’s nephew gets a job in the school system because he knows the guy doing the hiring — few would extend that understanding to positions of authority over the police department or school system. You need to know what you’re doing, and you need to meet all the requirements.
Some powerful jobs, though, have no such requirements — for instance, mayor or school board member. The people charged with overseeing the police chiefs and superintendents do not need to pass an exam or complete a course. Anyone is free to put themselves up for those, regardless of their qualifications.
Instead, we count on the electorate to do that job. We take for granted that in the absence of a formal qualification system, the voting populace, along with the news media, will figure out who passes muster. We leave it up to ourselves to make the calls that matter most.
Sometimes, we even get it right.