Bridgeport changes mind on returning Columbus statue

BRIDGEPORT — After months of sometimes bitter public debate over whether to return the Christopher Columbus statue to Seaside Park, the city was poised to quietly do so ahead of Monday’s holiday honoring the Italian navigator.

But, according to the contractor hired for the job, at the last minute Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration canceled.

“We only had a couple of more hours (of work) and it would have been up,” Jim McCarthy, manager of Mac Industrial Services of Beacon Falls, said Monday.

Ganim abruptly put Columbus in storage July 6 over what he said were unspecified threats of vandalism to the bronze likeness of the divisive historic figure.

Advocates who view Columbus as a positive representation of the Italian American experience and critics who consider him a symbol of colonialism and racism spent the summer debating if and where the statue, installed in the 1960s, should reemerge.

Meanwhile, the municipal parks commission, angered it had not been consulted by Ganim on the removal, gave him 45 days to restore it, and asked that the money not come from its budget. The mayor ignored that timeline and in late September instead announced “it is up to the commission as to what to do, and how to do it.”

Then suddenly last Thursday, commission chairman Banjed Labrador said, he received a surprise phone call from Acting Public Facilities Director Craig Nadrizny.

“Craig calls me and said, ‘I wanted to let you know that we’re prepping the statue and it should go up by Friday. We just don’t want to tell a lot of people because we don’t want a big gathering,’” Labrador said Monday.

McCarthy, a Bridgeport native, said Mac Industrial was the low bidder for the job, though he declined to reveal the cost. McCarthy said his staff spent Thursday shoring up the base for the statue’s return to Seaside.

“We were in the process of loading the statue on our flatbed (from storage) and I was called by public works to stop, put it back, they were going to cancel the project,” McCarthy said.

Labrador said Nadrizny called him back Thursday with the news, claiming he had made a mistake and public facilities did not have the funds to put the monument back.

“He just said, ‘We can’t do it. You guys (the parks board) are go ing to have to do it,’” Labrador said. “They’re just playing games. Enough is enough. This is a total lack of respect for our board.”

Labrador said the parks have a budget, but since Ganim unilaterally took the statue down, the money to restore it should not come from the commission.

Ganim’s office did not return a request for comment Monday.

City Councilman Michael DeFilippo, who has advocated for returning the statue, said he spoke with Nadrizny late last week and the public facilities director took the blame for the apparent mix-up.

“He’s like, ‘I thought it was in my budget but it wasn’t. It’s my (mess) up,’ ” DeFilippo said.

Christopher Caruso, a former state representative and organizer of the city’s annual Columbus Day festivities — including the wreath laying at the statue’s based that occurred Monday — called on Ganim to get more involved to settle the issue.

Labrador has repeatedly stated the parks board voted to have the mayor put the statue back in order to prompt negotiations between Columbus’ advocates and critics.

“He has shown no leadership on this and done nothing to bring the opposing sides together to try to work out a meaningful resolution,” Caruso said. “We’ll see where it goes from here.”

McCarthy said he planned to bill the city for some of the work his staff accomplished Thursday in preparing for the monument’s return. And, he said, his company is ready to finish the project on short notice.

“They change their mind, within two days we’ll have it up,” McCarthy said. “It’s all set to go.”