Following the City Council’s Monday night approval of a consulting contract to oversee the emergency operations center, Joe Gaudett on Tuesday issued his resignation as police chief. Captain A.J. Perez will lead the department as acting chief.
“The purpose of this correspondence is to inform you of my intention to retire as the Chief of the Bridgeport Police Department effective immediately,” Gaudett wrote in a letter to Mayor Joe Ganim submitted Tuesday afternoon. “I would like to express my great gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the Citizens of the City of Bridgeport for nearly thirty-three years, the last seven years as the Chief of Police.”
“I want to thank Joe Gaudett for his dedicated service to the public safety of Bridgeport and I look forward to working with him in his new role,” said Ganim. “I am also elated to name AJ Perez, a widely respected veteran of the Bridgeport Police Department as our city’s next chief. This is a new day in Bridgeport and we will have a new direction in our police department. We will return to the fundamentals of community policing and effective law enforcement, building up the size of the police force and the trust between the Bridgeport police and our community. AJ Perez is a natural leader who will inspire his fellow Bridgeport police and I look forward to swearing him in.”
“I am honored and humbled to be chosen as Bridgeport’s next police chief,” said Perez. “We are going to do great things in the city of Bridgeport, and I believe in the leadership that Mayor Ganim is providing to our city and to the police department. Together and with all the talented men and women of the Bridgeport police department we will make our city safer. We believe in the Bridgeport that can be!”
Ganim will publicly swear in Perez as Bridgeport’s next police chief at a public ceremony Thursday 5 p.m. at Bridgeport City Council Chambers, 45 Lyon Terrace.
www .youtube.com/watch?v=Hk_-XWpUFmU
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Let’s see what we have received since Mayor Ganim took over as mayor.
1. We have three people running the police department. Perez, Chapman and Paris.
2. We have a fourth former chief who is getting $250,000 doing next to nothing plus approximately three months’ vacation.
3, We have a retired FBI agent who is or will be paid to head a bullshit monitoring agency.
4. We just completed a deal with the former assistant Labor relations officer for which we are giving him a $35,000 buyout and two years of medical benefits at a non-published cost.
5. Why didn’t we just lay off McCarthy, pay him for unused vacation and that’s it? He was in a job the charter said he should not be in because he had been a city employee.
Now this is just what I know has happened in the past 100 days. Imagine what it will look like after four years.
I like Joe Ganim, but this shit is already starting. We have the huge deficit and need to cut 40-plus jobs, but let me go ahead and create a fictional position we can go without for $100,000-plus just so I can have my choice of chief. So stupid, really can’t stand this city anymore.
Joe Ganim is part of the problem.
You two guys just had to come and fuck up the tranquility we had going on with our crickets. Get the hell out of here and go over to some other OIB topic:
www .youtube.com/watch?v=8T2l15bKMZk
Joel, are those the noises you hear in your head?
It is possible Gaudett would have been entitled to a severance package if his contract were terminated early. Anyone know how much that would have cost vs the new agreement?
Jennifer, under state law (not to mention the Charter), the Mayor cannot terminate the Chief’s contract without just cause, which he clearly didn’t have.
*** I believe in picking your own city government personnel and looking out to an extent for those quality people who helped make your election win an easier task. But within reason; however costing city taxpayers extra money, that’s not really feasible at this time because you want things your way right away without waiting is a bit unreasonable to say the least, no? ***
AJ Perez and Chuck Paris have to go.
We no longer have a Bridgeport Police Department. What is left today is the Bridgeport Police Union.
Someone should tell Joe he cannot name AJ as the next chief. It is a provisional appointment pending Civil Service testing.
But Joe has shown us he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Ordinances, City Charter and other rules and regulations.
When was the last time we had a City Hall swearing-in for an Acting Chief (or any other acting or provisional official)?
www .youtube.com/watch?v=8T2l15bKMZk