http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-mungercops7oct15,0,5219015.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines
By Doug Dalena
Staff Writer
October 15, 2005
STAMFORD -- Mayoral candidate Christopher Munger wants Stamford to join with surrounding towns to create regional police teams for bomb disposal, critical incident response, canine drug-and-explosives-sniffing dogs and hostage negotiation.
The Republican candidate said yesterday he would work to convince leaders in the other towns to help pay for and contribute officers to the teams.
The special teams Munger proposed are already part of protracted contract negotiations between the city and the police union, which has clashed with Mayor Dannel Malloy over the details. Malloy, seeking re-election to his fourth term, also faces a challenge from Green Party candidate Darek Shapiro.
Munger also said he would expand the police department's identification bureau and add a sniper team.
The retired FBI agent, who teaches at the Rockland County, N.Y., police academy, has sought to use his law enforcement experience to convince voters that he will do a better job managing public safety.
Munger said he had discussed the special teams with police supervisors, whom he declined to identify because he did not want to drag them into the campaign.
Malloy has said he supports creating the teams, but some of the details are held up in negotiations over extra pay and bonuses for team members.
"You can resolve anything if you're willing to pay anything, or give into any demand," Malloy said.
Munger said Malloy has taken too long to create the special teams. He said he could resolve the matter quickly because, although he has never negotiated a union contract, he has worked with police officers throughout his career.
"That, I think, is going to be a matter of faith and trust between us," he said of negotiations with the union.
"It is dangerous when people in political life try to capitalize on ongoing negotiations," Malloy said. "It also raises expectations. . . that make fair and honest negotiations almost impossible."
He deferred to Police Chief Brent Larrabee about special teams that Larrabee wants to implement once the city and union agree on a contract.
Larrabee could not be reached.
"Some people have a different body of experience, not based on community policing," Malloy said. "I'll take the experience of my chief against somebody who's running for mayor any day."
Spreading the cost of special teams over several towns could remove some of the fiscal obstacles, Munger said.
"You can't ask one town to fund units which might be used to serve surrounding towns," Munger said in the statement. "With regionalization, the best and brightest officers from Stamford and its neighbors can be brought together to protect three or four towns, each of whom share the cost fairly."
Rockland County has a countywide critical incident response team and one for crowd control, as well as a central identification laboratory, Munger said.
Many of Rockland County's public safety functions are coordinated by the Rockland County Sheriff's department, an arm of the county government. Connecticut does not have county governments, although Munger said that won't be an obstacle.
Norwich Police Chief Louis Fusaro, president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs' Association, said regionalizing special details can make them more affordable but has its drawbacks.
"In many cases regionalization works very well where you have small agencies that don't have the resources to do things on their own," Fusaro said.
But getting team members when they are needed in a hurry can be a challenge.
"Regional units by their nature are not instantly accessible, as opposed to a unit within your own department," he said.
Fusaro said it may also be difficult to persuade smaller towns to help defray the costs when they have fewer officers to contribute to special teams that would be used mostly by Stamford.
"You may be calling them a large number of times, and the other communities may not," he said.
Malloy, a former prosecutor, has campaigned locally and in his run for governor on sweeping reductions in crime during his 10-year tenure. Stamford has ranked in FBI statistics for three straight years as one of America's safest cities.
Munger has accused Malloy during the campaign of failing to address recent upticks in violent crime and high-profile incidents of gang violence.
The union has not endorsed either candidate, but its public criticism of Malloy since negotiations bogged down over detectives' pay and other issues contrasts strongly with its grassroots involvement in his first mayoral campaign in 1995. Union support was seen as critical to Malloy's 3-2 ratio of victory over Republican Mayor Stanley Esposito.
"Whether we have a labor agreement or not, we have one of the greatest police departments in America," Malloy said.
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