It started with a wild Halloween party in 2009 at the Cape Verdean Association, and ended early morning with the arrest and subsequent government firing of John Gomes, then president of the club, charged with interfering with an officer, breach of peace and reckless endangerment. Gomes, a senior official for then Mayor Bill Finch, leveraged his job status to threaten a police officer, according to a police report.
After midnight police responded to the social club in The Hollow to investigate reports of a noisy party. Police reported they found more than 150 people pinched into the club with an authorized capacity far less. When police asked to see the liquor permit Gomes, who is Cape Verdean, declared: “I don’t have to show you fuckin’ shit.”
The club’s liquor permit was not stamped by the City Clerk’s Office and Health Department inspection permit not posted. Liquored up patrons allegedly cursed and threatened police including Gomes who said, according to the report, “Watch what happens to you (police sergeant) Evans on Monday.”
Finch issued a statement: “Behavior of this sort is unbecoming of any employee and will not be tolerated by anyone in my administration, regardless of their position.”
Finch fired Gomes from his position as deputy chief administrative officer. Finch insiders then and now say that episode added to other administrative liberties Gomes took without authorization.
Gomes maintained then he never cursed or threatened police, largely dismissing what was in the report.
Then Captain Roderick Porter, now police chief, wrote a follow up report validating the perspective of police officers at the scene.
A state judge granted Gomes request for accelerated rehabilitation, something common in these types of disputes.
Gomes launched a retaliatory failed mayoral race against Finch.
Fast forward: Gomes supported Joe Ganim’s return to the mayoralty in 2015 and received a city job appointed as acting chief administrative officer. Ganim demoted Gomes after he wired a job for his daughter, unknown to Ganim, in the police department. In time the relationship between Ganim and Gomes unraveled.
Gomes was fired last year and then once again launched a challenge of a former boss.
Two weeks ago Ganim, tucked in a tight race with Gomes, penned an editorial shared with several news outlets focused on Gomes’ government history ranging from two firings, nepotism, spying on city employees, creating a toxic work environment for women, personal vendettas, drinking on the job and running for revenge backed by a cadre of malcontents.
Ganim and Gomes are going back and forth with charges and countercharges. That’s all part of a campaign.
The 2009 police report is telling, however, going to the core of Gomes temperament to run the state’s largest city and as well the potential lengths he’ll go to exact retribution if things don’t go his way, something Ganim highlighted on social media and in the commentary.
See one of the reports that led to Gomes firing:
I believe that Joe and Lennie both were incapacitated at that time. (obtained)’
Ganim never got the memo, until this year…………………….?
“Gomes , My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You can’t handle it. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.”
Gomes for Mayor!
Imagine if someone was able to tap into the contemporaneous reports by Federal authorities that formed the nucleus of corruption charges against the Ganim administration from more than two decades ago? What would they say about the character and values of Joseph Ganim and followers, to the voters of today, 2024? Would that guide your ballot completion on January 23 in the Democratic primary where there seems to be no candidate with competence PLUS a clean record and experience?
Perhaps the most important voting process of EARLY 2024 will be the Democratic Primary in Bridgeport where a SILENT ELECTED LEADER sits and rules with little notice and NO CONSEQUENCES from the citizenry. Who will lead this action in each district?
Finally, as we enter a new year and hear voices calling for legal actions from the past to produce results currently, where is a Bridgeport electoral process without the presence of Wanda Geter-Pataky, from whom little has been publicly heard for several months? Time will tell.