City administration gets new look as Ganim names staffers
BRIDGEPORT — Finally reelected after a prolonged and controversial campaign season, Democratic Mayor Joe Ganim is making some personnel changes within his administration, including promoting a pair of campaign advisors who already held prominent positions within City Hall.
“This is the first step in a greater effort to reorganize city government, fill vacant positions and work with department heads to make city government more efficient and effective,” reads the statement from the mayor’s office Thursday.
Unlike the restructuring of 2022 where thentop aide John Gomes, who recently came close to ousting Ganim, was fired after six-and-a-half years, Ganim’s office said there are no terminations involved.
Key among the changes is the filling of a trio of openings within the chief administrative officer’s department, which helps manage the city.
Gomes, who had been acting CAO in 2016 and was then demoted to assistant, was never replaced after he was fired in July, 2022. The other assistant, Herron Gaston, who is also a state senator, last summer took a job with the University of Bridgeport. And in midFebrury CAO Janene Hawkins, who was appointed to that position in November, 2019, became chief human resource officer for the public schools.
Hawkins is being replaced with Thomas Gaudett, who has been part of the Ganim administration since he helped elect the mayor in 2015, most
recently as deputy chief of staff. And the other vacancies are being filled with state Rep. Fred Gee, who has been running Bridgeport’s small and minority business enterprise office, and David Reyes, Jr., director of health equity and human services.
Gaudett also served as a volunteer manager for Ganim’s recent successful bid for a third consecutive four-year term. Gaudett and fellow municipal employee Constance Vickers, another prominent campaign volunteer, run a firm, Park City Consulting, that was paid by the mayor’s campaign to produce various pieces of campaign literature.
Vickers will succeed Gaudett as deputy chief of staff. She has been the city’s liaison with the legislature
and governor at the Capitol building in Hartford. She was first hired in March 2019, left the city’s payroll in spring of 2022, then returned to that role in January 2023.
According to the mayor’s office Vickers will also be continuing her legislative duties.
Aidee Nieves, president of the all-Democrat City Council, in an interview said she was pleased to see “new blood and new energy” and believes the changes would re-energize the administration.
“All of these people are what we call ‘worker bees’ — they’ve put their heads down and done the work,” Nieves said. And, she added, they work well with council members and with Bridgeport’s legislative delegation.
Bridgeport is also getting a new head of the public facilities department. Luis Burgos is a 23plus-year veteran of that massive department, responsible for road repairs and paving, sidewalks, parks maintenance, snow plowing, leaf pickup and trash/recycling services. He, according to the mayor’s office, began as a sanitation worker and has for the last few years been in charge of roadways and parks.
Burgos replaces Craig Nadrizny, who, after being promoted from acting to permanent public facilities chief in early 2023, retired last November.
And, rounding out Thursday’s announced changes, the mayor is making lawyer Eroll Skyers permanent labor relations director after
being acting department head for the past year.
The restructuring might have come earlier this winter had it been a normal mayoral election. But last November a superior court judge concluded that some of the mayor’s supporters mishandled absentee ballots ahead of the Sept. 12 Democratic primary. As a result, Ganim’s slim 251vote and 179-vote victories over Gomes in the primary and in November’s resultant general election were tossed out and do-overs of each rescheduled for, respectively, Jan. 23 and Feb. 27.
Ganim won both of those new elections by larger margins.
Not included in Ganim’s reorganization list is Lamond Daniels. While Gomes challenged
Ganim in the two primaries, then ran as an Independent in the pair of general elections, Daniels, also a Democrat, petitioned his way onto the mayoral ballot.
He dropped out ahead of Feb. 27 and, despite having been highly critical of the mayor, endorsed Ganim over Gomes, leading to speculation he might be in the running for a government job. Neither Daniels nor Ganim had ruled out that possibility. Daniels worked for Ganim’s predecessor, former Mayor Bill Finch, and for the past few years has been part of Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling’s administration.
City Councilman Matthew McCarthy was a vocal Ganim critic but this time endorsed the mayor re-election. He said Thursday that Burgos “knows the city well” and also praised Gaudett’s promotion to CAO.
“I think he will hold people accountable. I don’t think there will be ‘red tape’ on stuff getting done within the city,” McCarthy said.
Still, he echoed his criticism from prior years that the CAOs office is overstaffed.
“I still question the need for two deputy CAOs,” McCarthy said.
Councilman Tyler Mack has generally not been a fan of Ganim’s but had nothing bad to say Thursday about the staffing changes.
“I’ve worked with quite a few of them on several projects and things,” Mack said. “I have no problem with any of them. I know their heart is for the city and know they want to do some good work. I’ll continue to work with them to keep making sure we better the city together.”