Mayor accuses NAACP chief of shake down

03/17/2007

William Kaempffer , Register Staff

NEW HAVEN — Mayor John DeStefano Jr. on Friday accused the president of the state and New Haven chapters of the NAACP of trying to shake down the city for an outreach contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. DeStefano said Scot X. Esdaile told him he was "washing his hands of New Haven" after learning the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wouldn’t get the contract for the city’s planned street outreach worker program, and then issued what the mayor said he perceived as a threat: That word on the street was that the mayor had personally intervened in 2005 to prevent the transfer of Lt. William "Billy" White, a city police lieutenant who this week was arrested in a FBI sting for corruption.

"I felt I was being threatened and shaken down," the mayor said Friday, "and I asked him to leave my office."

The meeting with Esdaile occurred Wednesday in City Hall.

DeStefano’s response to Esdaile’s claims the mayor was behind cancelling the White transfer came during a meeting Friday at the New Haven Register. Esdaile was not at the meeting.

"That man has a serious character and integrity issue," said Esdaile after learning of DeStefano’s assertion. "He should be ashamed of himself. He hasn’t done right in dealing with violence in the community. He hasn’t done right in dealing with the corruption in the Police Department."

The planned street worker program, a response to an increase in violence that put homicides at a decade high last year, will have an estimated annual budget of about $400,000. The city had put out a request for requests for qualifications.

DeStefano said Esdaile came to City Hall Wednesday to express displeasure that the NAACP would not be given the project outright. DeStefano said he urged Esdaile to submit a request for qualification.

That’s when Esdaile said he was washing his hands of the city and raised the White issue.

He and other black leaders in the city plan to meet March 27 to talk about whether DeStefano intervened to protected White’s job. The issue is particularly potent as more embarrassing information comes out about White’s alleged misconduct that could have spanned decades.

It’s the type of political firefight that generally is waged behind closed doors, but now has moved to the public arena.

The dispute in this case centers on a decision in January 2005 by Police Chief Francisco Ortiz Jr. to transfer White from his position as the head of the department’s Narcotics Enforcement Unit back to the Drug Administration Task Force after a number of high-speed chases, car crashes and a shooting by a member of White’s squad. Ten days later, the transfer was rescinded and the widely held belief inside the department was that DeStefano had intervened on his behalf.

Esdaile acknowledged he discussed both the street outreach program and the White situation with the mayor Wednesday, but called the suggestion that they were connected "silly" and the allegation of a shakedown outrageous.

After the city announced the outreach program last year, it provided the NAACP with $10,000 over two months to start a pilot program.

But as the long-term project was planned, the size of the budget by law required a competitive bidding process, DeStefano said.

Esdaile said the pilot program is up, running and effective and the organization has three outreach workers dealing with 20 at-risk youths. He said the mayor has repeatedly invoked the NAACP at press conferences as a partner in addressing youth violence and he feels DeStefano has reneged on that promise.

His unrelated comment about White at the meeting was a fact, not a threat, Esdaile insisted.

White’s transfer came at an stormy time at the department.

Four months earlier, one of White’s officers fired at a car in the Waverly Street projects with a playground as a backdrop. Then there were two fatal police shootings in November and December 2004.

White’s transfer and unhappiness with Ortiz’s management style prompted a "no confidence" vote from police rank and file. A day before the vote, White’s transfer was rescinded and Esdaile said he believes DeStefano was behind it.

"At that particular time, the mayor was striving to run for governor and it was very embarrassing to him and he needed to make his city solid while he was running for governor. He made a decision to do not was best for the city, to keep the city safe. He decided to do the political thing for his political career," Esdaile said. "It wasn’t about public safety. It wasn’t about doing the right thing. It was about his personal advancement in his political career."

DeStefano said Friday he did talk to Ortiz about the transfer, but said his concerns only were about how transfers were being made. At the time, Fridays were known as "Black Friday" because transfers often came out at the end of the day with little or no notice.

Ortiz Friday also insisted the decision to transfer White, and then rescind it, was his alone.

Esdaile’s assertion, DeStefano said, was a transparent attempt to get money from the city.

"It’s an attempt to get hundreds of thousands of dollars," said DeStefano. "I’m not going to be shaken down."