MORE THAN COVID MADE 2020 DIFFERENT
Politics, turmoil, change created area headlines
While 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of COVID-19, other notable events that took place.
Bridgeport’s police chief and personnel director were arrested by the FBI for conspiring to rig the process that got the chief his job and then lying about it.
Thousands were without power for days after hurricane-force winds blew through the area in August.
The death of George Floyd sparked marches areawide with demands for equity and a stop to systemic racism. The presidential race led to anger, vandalism and a new focus on mail-in balloting.
Here are the Top 10 (noncoronavirus) stories from the greater Bridgeport area from
1. Bridgeport police chief arrested by FBI
Following an at least two-yearlong investigation, federal authorities on Sept. 10 arrested then-Police Chief Armando Perez and then-Personnel Director David Dunn for conspiring to rig the 2018 search process that resulted in Mayor Joe Ganim promoting Perez from acting to permanent top cop with a five-year contract and then lying about it.
Perez and Dunn resigned and in early October, both men pleaded guilty. They are currently scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 25 and 26, respectively, and each faces up to two years in prison.
It is unclear whether the FBI probe, which also involved public facilities contracts and the illicit sale of scrap metal, is continuing and if there are other targets.
Questions over Ganim’s involvement arose after federal authorities released the formal complaint against Perez and Dunn. In that document, Dunn during an Oct. 17 phone conversation allegedly tried to convince one unidentified member of a police chief selection committee to ensure Perez was on the list of three finalists forwarded to the mayor.
“During the call, Dunn stated that the mayor wanted Perez to be ‘in the top three,’” read the complaint.
Ganim, a close friend of Perez’s, has denied playing any part in the efforts of Dunn and Perez.
2. Black Lives Matter protests draw crowds
The killing of 46-year-old George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25 ignited nationwide protests that lasted for months.
Floyd, a Black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than 8 minutes.
Activists and community members across the United States took to the streets to protest against police brutality and systemic racism.
Connecticut saw largely peaceful protests from the state’s biggest cities to smaller towns, with groups shutting down highways during protests, including on Route 8 in Shelton, Interstate 95 in West Haven, I-84 in Danbury and Route 8 in Bridgeport.
In mid-June, the Justice for Jayson organization — formed in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Jayson Negron by Bridgeport Police Officer James Boulay back in 2017 — pitched tents and camped out outside the city’s police headquarters for days, demanding changes in Bridgeport.
The occupation outside the police station in Bridgeport ended when members met with City Council President Aidee Nieves. She said several of the demands would be put into resolutions and sent to council committees.
An effort to create a committee of Council and community members to look into changes was stalled after questions arose over whether it was an official group and subject to Freedom of Information Act rules or a private group. Meetings of the members were suspended while the future of the group is debated.
3. Shelton police chief fires 6 police officers
Two separate Shelton Police Department internal affairs investigations over the summer and fall resulted in the firing of six police officers during a sevenweek period.
Lt. Dave Moore and Officers John Napoleone and Michael McClain were fired for dereliction of duty. Napoleone and Moore were the police union president and vice president, respectively.
Police Chief Shawn Sequeira fired the trio — two for allegedly failing to properly investigate a domestic violence complaint against another police officer and the third for allegedly covering it up — after an initial internal affairs investigation that began in August 2019.
Sequeira said that investigation was completed in November by Moore. The report, in which Moore cleared Napoleone and McClain, was found to be incomplete, leading to an additional internal affairs investigation that resulted in all three losing their jobs, Sequeira said.
The terminations of officers Dan Loris, Roger Falcone and Caroline Moretti resulted from an
internal affairs investigation that began in the spring in connection with what were alleged to be photos of officers changing their clothes in the department parking lot that appeared on the Support the Shelton Police Union Facebook page in July. In part, the officers were fired for lying about their part in the alleged activity.
All six officers have filed grievances over their firings.
4. University of Bridgeport to be reborn
Proving it has nine lives, the University of Bridgeport was in the business of reinventing itself again in 2020. Failed in its attempt to merge with the tiny Marlboro College in Vermont in 2019, the financially strapped UB lost its president of 18 months, Laura Trombley, just as the pandemic was taking hold and shut down the campus in March. Weeks later, a plan was hatched for UB to be absorbed by other universities that would co-habitate on UB’s seaside campus.
Before the paperwork could be finalized, one of the main players, Sacred Heart University, backed out. That left Goodwin University in East Hartford and Paier College of Art in Hamden holding the future of the university in their collective hands.
Despite continued resistance and publicly voiced suspicion from some city and community officials, it appears a plan to reinvent UB will happen. Goodwin President Mark Scheinberg has approval from the New England Commission of Higher Education and, he says, bank approval to buy UB and make it a free-forming subsidary of Goodwin University. The new UB will keep its name, location, programs, sports and student financial aid. It will have a new board and staff will be rehired under the new unionfree structure but it appears there will be a new freshman class welcomed in the fall of 2021.
5. Presidential election held amid chaos
The 2020 presidential election ushered in a time of chaos, competing rallies, parades, rumors, unprecedented numbers of mailin ballots and a split between those who insist Donald Trump was robbed of a win and those who believe the election was fairly counted and fairly won by Joe Biden.
Even the experts were surprised at the vitriol.
“There is nothing close to this presidential election in American history in a year like no other,” said Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven. “Not only was it the most acrimonious election in my lifetime but we’ve never had a situation with a refusal to accept the results.”
Locally and nationally, a new generation of young Americans, joining in demonstrations against systemic racism, galvanized by the last minute approval of Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice and vowing change, either showed up at the polls with masks in place or mailed in ballots in record numbers.
Four days after the Nov. 3 election, Biden was projected as the winner with 81 million votes.
“Many of the Biden votes were anti-Trump votes,” said Gary Rose, a professor and chairman of Sacred Heart University’s government department and a political author. “I talked to a lot of
people who said they voted for Biden and I did not see a sense of enthusiasm and excitement like when Ronald Reagan or even Trump was elected. I heard a lot of ‘we did what we had to do to defeat Donald Trump.’”
“It’s possible that if there was no pandemic and the economy continued to grow that Trump would have been re-elected,” Schmidt said. “But in the end, it was his failure to lead the country through its crises because of character flaws.”
6. Shooting at courthouse wounds 4
On Jan. 27, at 12:11 p.m., Bridgeport Police responded to Golden Hill Street courthouse after a Shot Spotter activation detected about 20 shots being fired in front of the courthouse.
Police discovered that four men — Trevon Wright, Khalil Heard, Jaffar Ali, Jaheim Warren — had been shot while sitting inside a black Chevrolet Impala parked near the courthouse.
Wright was shot in the side of his chest, and has been left paralyzed. Heard sustained multiple gunshot wounds to his back, shoulder and wrist. Ali was grazed in the head and shot in the left thumb, and Warren was grazed in the ribs. The victims' car had approximately 23 entry bullet holes in the driver's side and windshield area.
Five members of a rival gang were later indicted in connection with the shooting. The indictment charges Marques Isreal, Asante Gaines, Destine Calderon, Diomie Blackwell and Laheem Jones with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, attempted murder/aiding and abetting in assault with a dangerous weapon, and attempted murder.
Their cases are pending in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport.
7. Tropical storm slams area Tropical Storm Isaias slammed the state on Aug. 4, packing 70mile-per-hour winds and torrential rain. The storm knocked out power to more than 750,000 United Illuminating and Eversource customers. Many of those without power in the hardest hit areas did not get their electric back for a week or more.
In the aftermath of the storm, power restoration was hampered by thousands of downed trees. As soon as Aug. 5, the day after the storm, municipal leaders were complaining of a seeming scarcity of restoration crews, particularly from Eversource. Gov. Ned Lamont, after a meeting with top company executives, later called for an investigation of Eversourc
e’s response.
On Aug. 6, Lamont called out the Connecticut National Guard, which deployed four heavy roadclearing crews in an effort to speed power restoration. The day after that, more than 300,000 customers remained without power.
Finally, on Aug. 8 — four days after the storm — Eversource had reached its maximum response. With 1,600 work crews around the state, the company vowed to have power restored to 99 percent of its customers by midnight Aug. 11. With state officials and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., calling for energy bill refunds and Attorney General William Tong demanding reimbursement for customers’ spoiled food and medication — which the company rejected — Eversource met its 99 percent restoration goal.
By mid-afternoon on Aug. 13, nine days after the storm, Eversource had completed stormrelated power restoration.
Lamont and Blumenthal later called for the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to tie Eversource’s rates to performance goals and to remove profit guarantees.
“The disconnect between pay and performance is shocking to me,” Lamont said. “I think the days of getting a 9.5 percent rate of return for just showing up is over.”
8. Fotis Dulos dies
More than seven months after his estranged wife, Jennifer Dulos, was reported missing, Fotis Dulos, his girlfriend and his former lawyer were charged in connection with what investigators said was her murder.
Weeks later, when Fotis Dulos missed an emergency bond hearing at which a judge could have sent him to jail, he was found unresponsive in his Farmington home after a suicide attempt. He died days later.
In a note left in his car the day of his suicide attempt, Fotis Dulos denied killing his wife and lashed out at police, who he accused of fabricating evidence. His ex-girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, and his former lawyer, Kent Mawhinney, still face murder conspiracy and other charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.
9. Fairfield’s fill pile drama continued
More arrests in a scandal where Fairfield town officials allegedly conspired with private companies to dump hazardous material on public property and attempted to cover up the malfeasance were announced and the cost for the cleanup was increased to as much as $10 million as 2020 progressed.
The arrests were the result of a three-year investigation by detectives of the Fairfield Police Department and members of the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney, and began with residents’ complaints about a growing pile of debris next to the Fairfield public works garage.
In 2019, Joseph Michelangelo, who served as the town’s public works director, was charged with conspiring with Scott Bartlett, the town’s superintendent of public works, and Julian Enterprises owner Jason Julian to allow the company to dump truckloads of contaminated waste into the pile. Their cases remain ongoing.
In January 2020, former town Chief Financial Officer Robert Mayer was charged with allegedly entering Sullivan Independence Hall the day after his employment with the town ended and removing several file folders containing documents belonging to the town, some of which related to the investigation of the fill pile.
Then, in late November, Bartlett, Brian Carey, the interim public works director and town conservation director; and Emmet Hibson, the town’s former human resources director, were arrested and charged with conspiracy and illegally disposing of PCBs and solid waste.
Robert Grabarek of Osprey Environmental in Clinton, the company Fairfield hired to do the cleanup and build a berm of clean soil around the site to prevent contaminates from spreading to neighboring properties and waterways, was also charged for conspiring to bury contaminated materials.
10. Changes with school leadership
In 2020, Stratford, Shelton and Monroe school districts were suddenly looking for new leaders.
In January, the Monroe Board of Education announced it was placing the superintendent of schools and the district’s interim finance director on paid administrative leave.
Superintendent Jack Zamary and interim finance director Frank Connolly were removed from their positions. Joseph Kobza was named interim superintendent and was eventually named to the post permanently. The Board of Education eventually reached an agreement with Zamary that allowed him to remain with the district as a consultant — at least through the end of the year — at his present $193,800 salary.
Chris Clouet resigned as the Shelton School District’s superintendent in February, opening the door for the Board of Education to elevate Beth Smith to the top post.
The Board of Education, by a 5-4 vote along party lines, tapped Smith as the interim superintendent. Smith, the former Shelton High principal, had just recently been named the district’s special education services.
Within days of her arrival, Smith was faced with mitigating a $3.1 million budget deficit and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the closure of schools in mid-March and creation of a distance learning model to maintain student instruction.
The board began its permanent superintendent search in earnest in the fall, with Smith initially a candidate. Smith removed her name from consideration in September, however, announcing instead that she would retire at the end of the present school year.
Weeks later, the board hired longtime district member and present Assistant Superintendent Ken Saranich for the permanent role, which he begins on Jan. 1. Smith will then shift to her former role as supervisor of special education and pupil services.
Janet Robinson, who led Stratford school district since 2013, announced in September that she would be retiring in June.
“I’m proud of the work we have engaged in, and it is ongoing,” Robinson said, noting many administrators and schools have received awards during her tenure.
The Stratford school board has begun the process of finding Robinson’s replacement and hopes to have a final candidate by April.