By John Nickerson
Staff Writer
March 23, 2007
NORWALK - Former Mayor Alex Knopp said last night that he did not know about a 2005 videotape showing a firefighter uttering racial slurs to describe blacks and Hispanics.
Knopp appeared before a Common Council panel looking into allegations of racism in the fire department.
The former mayor said he received a letter on Sept. 6, 2005, from former firefighter Scot Wilson that contained a transcript allegedly taped during a conversation at the Broad River firehouse in March 2005.
Knopp said that while he was sent a copy of the three-page letter with another 10 pages of attachments, the document also was sent to Fire Chief Denis McCarthy. Knopp said he expected McCarthy to raise any issues the letter brought up if they were important.
"I never read the letter and have no recollection of looking at it," Knopp said as he read a five-page statement to the investigative panel of the Common Council's Health Welfare and Public Safety Committee.
"In light of the volume of mail received in my office, I rarely, if ever, spent time reading letters that were addressed and written to other city department heads and would have relied on the recipient to let me know if it contained noteworthy material," he said.
Wilson's videotape, which he released to the media in November, led the panel to start its investigation into racism.
The transcript of the videotape was attached to a discrimination complaint the black firefighter filed in September 2005 with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.
Wilson, who was suspended for repeatedly showing up for work under the influence of alcohol, has since reached an agreement with the city to leave the department, drop his complaint and collect $40,800 in pay. He attended last night's hearing.
Some panel members last night, however, questioned Knopp's recollections of his last two months in office before being defeated by Mayor Richard Moccia in November 2005.
Common Council President Michael Coffey pressed Knopp on whether the subject of Wilson's videotape came up during Fire Commission meetings or whether he discussed it with other department staff members.
Knopp said he did not recall any such conversations, adding that the fire commission's business was consumed at the time by union contract negotiations.
"I wish the chief had told me about it," Knopp said, adding that he did not find out about the videotape until November, when it became the subject of news reports.
McCarthy has since admitted his error and apologized for not dealing with the situation when it arose.
Knopp was one of four witnesses who appeared before the panel last night.
Former Norwalk Fire Chief Sanford Anderson and Ronald Mackey, president of the Firebird Society of Bridgeport, the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, and Donald Day, director of the Northeast region of the same association also spoke.
Mackey and Day, who have no formal association with the Norwalk Fire Department, said racism was a problem in the organization.
But Anderson, who also is black, denied the allegation.
Asked by the panel chairwoman, the Rev. Phyllis Bolden, whether he was aware of racism in the department, Anderson said, "No. It was very quiet," referring to his one-year term as chief during 2004-05.
"We had some small incidents but nothing outstanding," said Anderson, who spent 45 years in the department before finishing his one-year chief's contract and becoming Greenwich fire chief.
Bolden asked whether Anderson remembered an incident in which a black firefighter's gear had been cut up. Anderson replied that he did not.
"In the fire department, they do get along. They worked together all the time, no matter who it was. We worked together," Anderson said. "When that bell hits and the flames are shooting out, color means nothing."
Wilson said he liked what he heard at the meeting.
"It's a beginning of improving the fire department," Wilson said.
More witnesses will appear before the panel at a date to be announced, Bolden said.
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