Top court to hear promotion case

By Martin B. Cassidy, Greenwich Time Staff Writer
04/14/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

Another chapter in a four-year battle over the town's methods for promoting unionized police and firefighters to command positions will begin this week as the state Supreme Court takes up whether the town flouted state labor law by passing over a Greenwich lieutenant for promotion in 2003.

Tomorrow the town will ask the high court to overturn last year's legal victory of Gary Honulik, who was promoted to captain by a court decision last September.

The decision also demoted to lieutenant Michael Pacewicz, the officer the court found was wrongfully promoted over Honulik in 2003.

A victory would affirm the power of police and fire commanders to choose who is promoted based on a greater variety of criteria than a test, Town Attorney John Wayne Fox said.

"I think the biggest negative for the town would be the potential for this being viewed as a precedent for the town's hiring," Fox said. "My greatest concern is that it could have a negative impact on how we would hire, and being able to use the type of criteria we feel is warranted in choosing managers."

The Supreme Court hearing will begin at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning in Hartford, with the court also deciding various motions from Honulik seeking greater damages from the town and Pacewicz seeking to reverse his demotion.While the suit is pending, there is a court order in place barring the promotion of police captains and deputy chiefs, creating a shortage of leadership in the department.In elevating Honulik to captain last September, state Superior Court Judge Michael Shay slammed the town, finding that former police Chief James Walters illegally passed over Honulik.

The ruling also chastised former First Selectman Jim Lash and other town officials for "arrogance" and creating a legal tangle through an effort to promote Pacewicz to deputy chief in 2006, which Shay said was a "thinly disguised" effort to pre-empt the court's decision in the lawsuit.

Before Pacewicz's promotion in 2003, the police department had an virtually unbroken record for more than a decade of promoting the top scoring officer on a promotional exam.

But in Honulik's case, Walters added an interview to the evaluation process after Honulik got the top score, which Shay ruled was a blatant violation of the town's past police employment practices.

Honulik's attorney, Kathryn Emmett of Stamford, said that her client is relieved to see that the final resolution of the lawsuit, which Honulik filed in 2004, is approaching.

"We're glad to see the case coming to a conclusion and having the opportunity to present it to the Supreme Court," Emmett said.

But Fox said that while the town is confident the Supreme Court will find in their favor, a ruling against Greenwich could expose the town to other suits from police and firefighters that they were passed over because of bias or favoritism.

The Supreme Court granted an expedited hearing in the suit last October, in part because it agreed the town had a legitimate reason to seek the court's speedy intervention because the litigation and its associated freeze on hiring police captains and deputy chiefs was hampering police operations.

Currently only two out of five top posts in the department are filled, with two deputy chief slots and one captain job remaining vacant.

In the interest of breaking the promotional freeze and putting the case behind the town, First Selectman Peter Tesei said this week he felt it would have been wiser to have settled with Honulik and Pacewicz last fall rather than resorting to the longer Supreme Court appeal of Shay's decision.

The sole decision to appeal the case was made by Lash, after a special vote by the Board of Selectmen gave him authority to choose whether to fight Shay's verdict.

"Ideally, we will be better off when this situation is resolved because of our inability to promote above the rank of captain at the moment," Tesei said. "In the interest of the police department and the town it would be better to focus on the mission at hand rather than be distracted by something like this."Rank-and-file police officers consider the town's long-running policy of promoting the top scorer on promotional tests as protecting the impartiality of the civil service promotional process, said Sgt. James Bonney, president of the Silver Shield Association, the police union.

"We always felt that Shay's decision was right and that the town couldn't pass over the top scorer because of past practice," Bonney said. "We're going to have to see what happens this week."

Attempts to reach William Kupinse, Pacewicz's Easton-based attorney, were unsuccessful.