Bridgeport cop board chair calling it quits

AARON LEO Article Last Updated: 08/25/2008 12:06:45 AM EDT

Bridgeport cop board chair calling it quits - Topix

BRIDGEPORT — After more than two decades as an elections moderator for the city and four years as chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, Thomas L. Kanasky had enough.

The mudslinging and partisan bickering all too common to Bridgeport politics had taken a toll on Kanasky, 61, and he walked away from civic service, convinced it just wasn't worth the aggravation.

"I'm not lending my credibility to the city ever again," Kanasky said one recent afternoon, sitting in his downtown law office on Fairfield Avenue. Still, he added, "I'm very satisfied with my four years on the [police] board."

With his term on the board set to expire and a replacement nominated, Kanasky resigned his chairmanship in June — around the same time he stepped down as head moderator amid lingering allegations of election fraud in the Democratic mayoral primary.

For some of Kanasky's colleagues, his exit from the political scene was a big loss for the city.

He has "an impeccable reputation," said Santa Ayala, the city's Democratic registrar of voters. "I think it's a great loss. You have an honest, capable individual."

David Hall, vice president of the police board, also praised his former colleague and vowed to continue his reform efforts aimed at giving the board more control over disciplinary cases.

In his resignation letter to the board, Kanasky accused the department's leadership and the city of ignoring the history of minority officers' federal discrimination lawsuits against the department and the resulting remedy orders.

A Democrat since he first registered to vote at 18, Kanasky said he's always been independent in judgment and the city knew that before then-Mayor John M. Fabrizi appointed him to the board. He turned Republican in 2006 because, he says, the Democrats had gone too far left for him.

"I got tired of Democratic politics, not just in the city," he said. "The Democratic Party just doesn't want conservative people. I always felt they needed a conservative lean."

Finch, who defeated state Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, in last year's contested primary, said he's known and respected Kanasky for years, and credited him for his board service. But Finch said he sought a police board that would support Police Chief Bryan T. Norwood and wanted "a fresh set of eyes on the Police Department."

Kanasky took exception to the mayor's use of the word "support." "There's a difference between supporting and obeying," he said. "Somebody's got to point out to me where I didn't support the chief."

His comments appeared to be a veiled reference to the case of Officer Douglas Bepko, who was fired by the board last year after a domestic violence incident. Norwood had wanted Bepko fired immediately, but the board held hearings and fired him several months later. Norwood, displeased, stopped talking to the board for several months, but eventually reconciled. The chief has said he looks forward to working with the board — which has several new members — but hasn't commented directly on the former chairman.

Hall sided with Kanasky on the Bepko issue, saying it also illustrates Kanasky's independent stance. The board acts as a liaison between the public and the department, but is independent of both.

Firing Bepko too quickly would have been a mistake, Hall said. "As an attorney, he knows the consequence of that action," he said.

Kanasky said he was also frustrated by lack of communication with the mayor, which hurt his efforts to get department policy enforced. The silence, he added, has continued to this day.

"The mayor and I have never talked about the police commission or anything," the former chairman said.

For example, he said, he tried to get the city and the department to adhere to the proper procedure for appointing officers to the Office of Internal Affairs. He was also trying to get the board to hear more discipline cases, because some serious ones were handled quietly in-house by Norwood, he said.

"The department is still pick and choose" in terms of discipline, Kanasky said. "I thought there should have been referrals to the board. There are cases we knew about that we thought should have been referred to the board."

The last straw for Kanasky, however, was the Democratic primary. After Caruso lost, he accused Kanasky of not being certified to run elections because of inadequate training on the electronic voting machines.

But now, Kanasky said, he doesn't have to worry about that.

He appears to have plenty to keep him busy, judging by the full boxes stacked in his law office and the filing cabinets against the wall. He's been practicing since 1980.

That career and his efforts to get a monument built for Bridgeport's World War II veterans, living and dead, are the only things on his mind these days. Kanasky, is a Vietnam veteran and a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

"I want to get this monument built and maybe retire from public life," he said.