Ganim offers no timeline on new police chief search
BRIDGEPORT — Three months after ex- Police Chief Armando Perez’s Sept. 10 arrest for cheating to earn the top cop job, it is unclear when Mayor Joe Ganim will launch a search for a new permanent police chief.
“We have to get together as a council and call on the mayor to start this search,” Councilman Matthew McCarthy told his colleagues on the legislative body’s public safety committee earlier this week. “We need to start now to light a fire under him.”
The group was meeting to vote on a resolution giving the all- Democratic City Council more involvement in the search process once it is ordered by the mayor. The council is expected to vote on the matter Monday.
Councilwoman Jeanette Herron, a public safety committee co- chair, agreed with McCarthy: “I’d like the search to start after
this resolution gets approved Monday.”
But Ganim’s office gave no indication that he was preparing to move forward.
“The mayor will consult with the City Council and the city leadership team and city attorney as to timing and process,” said his communications director, Rowena White, Wednesday. Ganim is also a Democrat.
Meanwhile, Council President Aidee Nieves, in a departure from her previous stance, on Wednesday said she believed it could be months before a search was launched. Nieves cited a pair of pending lawsuits by two candidates who lost out to Perez as well as the need to hire a permanent personnel director to help look for a new chief.
“I think we should wait until the dust settles,” Nieves said.
Former personnel head David Dunn and Perez were both arrested Sept. 10 following a federal investigation which alleged they conspired to ensure Perez’s name was on the list of three chief finalists forwarded to Ganim in 2018 and then lied to the FBI about it. Perez and Dunn resigned their positions, pleaded guilty Oct. 5 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making a false statement and are awaiting sentencing.
Perez was supposed to be sentenced Jan. 4 but this week won a delay until Feb. 25.
Ganim in September appointed Assistant Chief Rebeca Garcia as acting head of the police depart
ment. When some council members and activists called on the mayor to instead hire one of the other 2018 finalists — Bridgeport Captain Roderick Porter or former New Haven Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova — to replace Perez, Nieves urged City Hall “begin preparations for a nationwide process ... that incorporates public input and will give the public confidence in the final selection.”
Nieves Wednesday noted that since she made those comments, Porter and former Assistant Chief Nardozzi, who had also applied for the chief’s job in 2018, have filed legal actions against the city related to Perez’s and Dunn’s arrests.
Porter has sought to amend a pending 2019 federal discrimination lawsuit to add that he “was the victim of the ‘ criminal scheme’” that resulted in Ganim choosing Perez and giving him a five- year contract.
And Nardozzi, who earlier this year settled a previously wrongful termination case — Ganim fired him in 2016 — filed a lawsuit claiming he had finished fourth in the 2018 search and “absent the conspiracy to commit fraud and the cheating by Perez and Dunn” would have joined Porter and Casanova as a finalist.
“I would like those cases to be wrapped up ( prior to a search) so it’s a clean slate,” Nieves said Wednesday. She also said since Dunn was for years allowed to serve as acting personnel head, it would be better for Ganim to hire a permanent one before a new chief just to avoid any additional criticism of how the next permanent top cop is selected.
Attorney Thomas Bucci represents Porter individually as well as part of a group of four officers in a separate legal action seeking to overturn Garcia’s appointment as “unlawful” and “invalid.” Bucci in response to Nieves said, “Don’t use Captain Porter’s lawsuit as the excuse for not pursuing your responsibility to fill a vacant position. That’s what it sounds like, here.”
Bucci said if Porter proves his 2019 discrimination claim, putting the captain in charge of the department “would be one of the remedies” although “monetary damages” could be another. But, Bucci added, “If there’s a chief of police selection and it’s fair, I imagine Captain Porter would be one of the individuals participating in it.”
Nardozzi in an interview Thursday said he would again apply for the job of running Bridgeport’s force: “There are
many good and honest and hardworking men and women in the Bridgeport Police Department and I remain convinced that the organization can be transformed for the better.”
Following Perez’s arrest, Nardozi submitted an opinion piece to The Connecticut Post offering ideas on how to improve policing and police administration in Bridgeport.
Casanova earlier this year took a job leading the police at the Capitol building in Hartford. Casanova on Wednesday in his first public comments since Perez’s arrest would neither confirm nor deny that he was still interested in being Bridgeport’s chief.
“I’m willing to have a conversation about the future of the Bridgeport Police Department with anyone for the betterment of the department and members of the community,” Casanova said.
Councilwoman Maria Pereira was among those who had been urging Ganim in September to replace Perez with Porter or Casanova. During Tuesday’s public safety committee meeting, she said she was “troubled” that a majority of her council colleagues did not support her effort, resulting in expiration of that list of 2018 finalists in October and the need to launch a costly new search.
Nieves on Wednesday claimed the arrests of Perez and Dunn “tainted” all of the 2018 results.
“I don’t think if another chief was to be picked off of that list, they would go in with the respect of their subordinates,” Nieves said.