DPH fires official who questioned his orders
Communications chief feared interference in murder investigation
Av Harris, the state health department’s communications director since 2019, was fired effective Thursday in retaliation for questioning the legality of a Dec. 29 order that he contact city officials he knew in Bridgeport, where he formerly worked, to obtain police information about a sports bar that Department of Public Health officials planned to cite for a COVID-related violation, Harris’ lawyer says.
The bar, called Mangoz, had been the scene of a double homicide shooting on Dec. 20, giving Harris legitimate “concerns about interfering with the pending criminal investigation,” Harris’s lawyer, Irene Bassock, said in a Jan. 8 letter to DPH protesting the termination.
After being unable to reach DPH lawyers, Harris “sought legal guidance” from a lawyer in Gov. Ned Lamont’s office about what he’d been asked to do — and was told to “take no further action with regard to reaching out to Bridgeport,” Bassock wrote.
Yet two days later, on Dec.
31, acting DPH Commissioner Deirdre Gifford said in a letter he was to be terminated as of the close of business Jan. 14. She gave no explanation other than that “your appointment to the unclassified service ... is being concluded” and he would be on a paid leave until then.
Bassock said in a statement Friday that she knows the real reason: “The facts demonstrate that his abrupt termination is illegal retaliation for speaking up about potentially unlawful activity. Instead of terminating him, Mr. Harris should be commended for how ethically he performed his job.”
“We hope that the administration agrees and demonstrates that it supports whistleblowers by returning Mr. Harris to work,” Bassock said. “Mr. Harris hopes to continue working, but he is keeping his options open.”
Lamont’s director of communications, Max Reiss, declined to respond to Bassock’s statements Friday afternoon, saying the administration does not comment on such legal or personnel matters. A spokesman for Gifford also declined comment.
Bassock, in her Jan. 8 letter to DPH General Counsel Antony Casagrande, wrote that in this episode, “Mr. Harris had a good faith basis and legitimate concerns that he was being asked to engage in unlawful activities. He reported those legal concerns within the DPH and to the
highest executive office in the state — the Governor’s office. As a direct result of that report and less than 48 hours later, his employment was terminated.”
“Rather than being applauded for the measures that he took to protect DPH, he has lost his livelihood and ability to provide for his family during the midst of a pandemic.” she wrote.
What happens next, in terms of Harris’ legal steps, was unclear Friday night.
But Bassock, in the Jan. 8 letter, cited Connecticut statutes that she said protect an employee from retaliation “when that employee makes an internal complaint regarding a suspected violation of law. Employees are protected when their speech in the workplace concentrates on public rather than personal matters of concern.” Employees who prevail in lawsuits under those statutes are entitled to damages, she said.
Harris, who was making $110,000 a year in the job, has been one of the highest-profile press aides in state and city government over the past decade. He handled press duties for statewide elected officials, for Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim from 2015 to early 2019, and since then for DPH.
For about a week, he had not been available on the phone, and emails to his state account bounced back marked “undeliverable.”
The reason for all that emerged Friday with the statement by Bassock, who said she’d be doing all the public commenting on her client’s behalf.
Events leading to firing
Bassock gave a narrative in the Jan. 8 letter of what led up to the firing, as follows:
“Mid-afternoon on December 29, 2020, Mr. Harris received a phone call from Barbara Cass, Branch Chief of Health Care Quality and Safety at DPH. During this call, Ms. Cass informed Mr. Harris that Commissioner Gifford planned to issue a $10,000 fine against a Sports Bar in Bridgeport called Mangoz no later than December 31, 2020.
“Earlier on December 20, a double homicide shooting had occurred at Mangoz and the incident was under criminal investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department. Ms. Cass informed Mr. Harris that DPH would issue the fine for COVID-19 economic sector rules violations, such as exceeding mandated gathering limit sizes, and not enforcing the wearing of masks in the establishment.
“She also told Mr. Harris that his immediate assistance was needed.
“Specifically, in order to issue the fine, Ms. Cass said that state investigators would need a statement from one or two Bridgeport police officers who were on scene responding to the shooting. The statement needed to include a description of what the officers saw in terms of many people consuming alcohol in close proximity, not wearing masks, and the estimated size of the crowd in the establishment.
“In order to obtain these statements from Bridgeport police officers, Ms. Cass told Mr. Harris that DPH would need to reach out to the city government and get buy-in from the Police Department to have the officers give statements for this state enforcement action. Ms. Cass also said that because of Mr. Harris’ strong connections in Bridgeport, DPH leadership wanted him to call the
city and initiate the process on behalf of DPH.
“Aside from concerns about interfering with the pending criminal investigation and the accuracy of the legal entity receiving the fine, Mr. Harris had significant concerns about DPH’s legal authority to issue the fine.
“Ms. Cass indicated that she was told that Executive Order 9N issued by Governor Lamont gave DPH authority to issue the $10,000 fine to the business. But, Mr. Harris’ review of the Executive Order was very troubling and raised some very serious and complicated questions:
“Did DPH have the authority to issue this fine? It appears that the Executive Order requires the DPH Commissioner to determine that the COVID sector rules are not being effectively enforced by local authorities before DPH has any authority to issue fines. Had DPH made that determination? If so, how did DPH determine that?
“Did DPH ask Bridgeport to enforce the fine? If DPH determined the local authorities were not effectively enforcing the rules, did DPH need to notify Bridgeport of that determination and that pursuant to Executive Order 9N, therefore DPH would take action?”
“Finally,” Bassock wrote, Harris wondered: “[W] ould asking that officers give statements to DPH be considered unlawful interference with Bridgeport’s active criminal investigation of the double homicide?”
She said Harris “needed fast answers to these legal questions before he reached out to his contacts in Bridgeport. He felt pressure to move quickly because Commissioner Gifford wanted action by Thursday 1⅔1 — within 48 hours. And, Mr. Harris had serious concerns that his actions would set off a chain of events that could violate the law.”
So he tried to contact Casagrande, the DPH general counsel, who was on vacation, Bassock wrote, as well as another DPH attorney who also wasn’t available.
“Therefore, Mr. Harris sought legal guidance from Doug Dalena, Deputy Legal Counsel in the Governor’s office,” Bassock wrote.
“Mr. Harris had communicated regularly from time to time as warranted by issues that had arisen during his employment at DPH, and was aware that [Casagrande] and Attorney Dalena have collaborated closely on executive orders and travel advisories during the pandemic.
“Thus, his escalation to Attorney Dalena felt appropriate and correct given the urgency of the matter and legal questions at stake,” Bassock said. “Mr. Harris discussed the legal matters with Attorney Dalena and later that day received instructions from Attorney Dalena to take no further action with regard to reaching out to Bridgeport.”
That led to a DPH videoconference in which Bassock said it was established that “the Governor’s office had intervened and was handling it directly. DPH did eventually issue a $10,000 fine to the owner of the building containing the Mangoz bar on December 31 accompanied by a joint statement from the Governor’s office and the City of Bridgeport, which quoted the Governor, Commissioner Gifford, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, Bridgeport Police Chief Rebeca Garcia, and Bridgeport Health Director Lisa Morrissey.”
Bassock said Harris “viewed this outcome as more successful than the original action contemplated, partially resulting from his intervention.
However, Mr. Harris’ escalation of legal concerns about DPH’s potentially unlawful actions with regard to Executive Order 9N cost him his job.”
‘This firestorm began’
“Less than three hours after this firestorm began, Mr. Harris was summoned to a videoconference meeting with Commissioner Gifford and [DPH] Chief of Staff Lita Orefice. During that meeting, they admonished Mr. Harris for escalating his legal concerns to the Governor’s office,” Bassock wrote. “He was also told that it was improper for him to have sought legal counsel ... and that all questions concerning his assignments should be directed to Ms. Orefice as his supervisor.
“On [December] 31, 2020, Commissioner Gifford and Ms. Orefice summoned Mr. Harris to another meeting and terminated his employment effective January 14, 2021,” Bassock wrote, adding that they did this “less than four months from his ten-year anniversary date and health care benefit milestone as a state employee.”
Harris made a case for himself in a Jan. 3 email to Gifford and Lamont’s chief of staff, Paul Mounds, saying in part: “Since I began working for DPH on February 25, 2019, I have worked tirelessly. These past two years have involved very difficult circumstances, most notably the pandemic. We have weathered some serious storms and succeeded, including a pandemic. We have weathered some serious storms and succeeded, including a tumultuous change in leadership. My efforts have been a part of our success, and I am proud of the work we have done.”
The tumultuous change he mentioned was Lamont’s firing in May of then-DPH Commissioner Renée Coleman-Mitchell, after which Gifford, who was already commissioner at the state Department of Social Services, also assumed her continuing acting commissioner’s role at DPH.
Harris’ firing comes soon after the DPH’s communications operation has undergone a major change since Dec. 1, when the agency gave a no-bid, $250,000 contract for three months to the Hartford-based public relations firm of Duby McDowell — a former TV reporter with Democratic political ties who has supported Lamont publicly.
Under that contract, McDowell Communications Group has been given the primary role in handling DPH’s communications about the COVID19 pandemic from Dec.
1 to Feb. 28, and Gifford has said the contract may be extended beyond that term. Maura Fitzgerald, a senior vice president with the McDowell firm, has been given the lead role in handling the DPH’s media relations and COVID19 communications. She served from 2016 to 2019 as the DPH’s director of communications under then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
The McDowell contract faced controversy since a Jan. 2 Courant column raised questions about her role since October as co-host of the weekly “Face The State” news interview show on WFSB-TV, Channel 3. Questions included how she could be objective in her co-host’s role conducting interviews about the administration’s performance.
After several days of WFSB saying she could remain as co-host with Courant columnist Kevin Rennie, as long as she didn’t interview guests who posed a conflict of interest with her PR work, it ended up that last Sunday’s show was their last. McDowell and Rennie were hired as a team in October to replace recently departed “Face the State” host Dennis House — and they both left after the conflict-of-interest problem surfaced with one of them, McDowell.