On this holy day of resurrection, Acting Police Chief Rebeca Garcia must atone for ghosting the City Council’s budget committee meeting.
From Brian Lockhart, CT Post:
A scheduled teleconferenced meeting for the City Council to examine one of its most important municipal budgets–for the police department–with top officials from the force was curtailed Saturday after the chief and an aide did not attend.
Whether the parties will be able to meet before the council finalizes its budget by May 10 remains to be seen.
“For us to do this and then we don’t have people to show up, it’s just not right,” said Councilman Ernie Newton, a chairman of the Budget Committee, which has been meeting almost daily with various department directors to analyze Mayor Joe Ganim’s draft of the 2022-23 municipal fiscal plan.
“This is just another poor reflection on (police) leadership,” Councilman Matthew McCarthy said.
… Garcia in an emailed statement to Hearst Connecticut Media afterward clarified, “I am recovering from a procedure which I respectfully will not expound upon.” But, she said, she attended “the Christian flag-raising” at City Hall for the Easter holiday and had thought her prior request to postpone her budget hearing had been accepted.
Full story here.
Funny, some of the same council members who denigrate Garcia and hold her to high standards never publicly denounced former police chief Perez for breaking the public’s trust, for corruption, all of which landed him in prison.
When will this clown show end? All of this started with Joe Ganim wanting and needing AJ Perez to be the police chief after serving as Ganim’s driver when he was a Captain and giving wine in his home for Ganim after driving him to New York during Ganim’s first term as mayor. The BPD has mismanaged for years, corruption, cheating and much more all in Joe Ganim’s need to have Perez as his police chief. Ganim appoints Rebeca Garcia as the Acting Police Chief and there are more lawsuits with that decision. Now we have this “No Show For Police Budget Hearing, Garcia Must Resurrect Her Standing With City Council.” There’s only one answer for this problem, first get rid of Mayor Joe Ganim, Ganim is endangering the voters of this city with his lack of leadership. Maybe someone will answer the question of who told David Dunn to make sure that Perez comes out in the top three on the chief exam.
🤡 🎪 🤹♀️ 🤹 🤹♂️ 🎪 🤡
Cheers!!!
It’s obvious that the BPD has no need for a presence at the hearing because they have more than enough funding. It’s about time to put more than 17% of CITY tax dollars towards education. Perhaps it’s time to change priorities from incarceration to education.
Garcia doesn’t need to resurrect anything. Her days in charge are numbered, a search firm to be hired and a new chief (not acting) found. She needs to find a new job elsewhere or find a way to go out on a permanent disability pension.
“I am working on a road job,” LT Cotto tells us, according to the Lockhart report.
Are we talking about external overtime work, at 150% of pay for what appears the safest work available to public safety officers, and for which they appear overtrained and over equipped routinely. But OT earnings count towards retirement pay, right?
To whom is that work as important as getting a comprehensive but lean plan for the operating budget? Only Lt. Cotto, perhaps. Following the communications misunderstanding of the Acting Chief? Public servants? Time will tell.
JML, that’s small potatoes weather he’s working outside OT or not, this is about planning and confirming a budget meeting but there wasn’t any followup to confirm.