Fire board upholds inspector's firing

AARON LEO
ConnPost Article Last Updated: 09/03/2008 03:22:20 PM EDT

BRIDGEPORT — Fire Inspector Nicholas Novia, recently fired on departmental charges that he failed to make inspections and falsified reports, last night lost his appeal to the city's Board of Fire Commissioners to keep his job.

Novia's hearing at Fire Department headquarters was open to the public at his request.

The board, after viewing several pages of Global Positioning Satellite data that fire officials say show that Novia stopped at unassigned locations while he was on duty, voted 5-1 to uphold Novia's termination.

Fire Chief Brian Rooney used GPS units secretly installed in the fire marshals' vans to track inspectors' daily use of the vehicles between May and September 2007.

After the board rejected his appeal, Novia took his wife's hand and they walked out without comment.

But his lawyer, Chip Walsh, called the chief's evidence "smoke and mirrors."

"Naturally, I'm disappointed," he said adding that he will appeal the dismissal to the state Labor Department.

Novia's former immediate supervisor, Fire Marshal Bruce Collins, also watched the proceedings, sitting next to Novia's wife.

Novia, terminated July 29, is the sixth inspector to be fired on the GPS-based charges of misusing the city vehicles and failing to perform assigned duties.

The lone vote to overturn the discipline was cast by board member the Rev. Mary Lee.

"I don't think what was said would warrant him being terminated. I really don't feel like the [chief] proved anything," she said.

John Bohannon, an outside lawyer hired to represent the Fire Department, said Novia's behavior violated the public trust and endangered the lives of city residents and fellow firefighters.

Novia, speaking for himself, admitted that while he didn't conduct assigned inspections, he nonetheless did some work on them.

"I sat down and researched the owner, sent out a contact letter," he said.

Research included trips to City Hall and local courthouses, which are also recorded in the GPS data, Walsh said.

One problem for the board was that Novia used the phrase "no access" in his reports.

"'No access' showed I went there and didn't get in," Novia, a 20-year-veteran, said. "That's the way I've done things."

He also addressed the unassigned stops, attributing some to lunch, studying in the car or reading the fire code.

"We're also [conducting] fire investigations. I've also parked the car and got out with those [smoke alarm] fliers," Novia said. "It's all part of the job."

The inspector, who was promoted to captain before he was fired, argued that many of the allegedly faked reports were inspections in progress. With four or five assigned daily inspections, Novia said he fell behind in completing "hundreds" of cases.

Walsh said Novia "never represented the [reports] were completed."

Board member John O'Malley disagreed with that.

"My main concern was that there was falsification," he said.

The five other fire inspectors terminated in the GPS sting are Ronald Morales, Stephen Vitka, Manuel Alicea, Frank Gerardi and Lorenzo Pittman. Their appeals are pending before the fire board and haven't been re-hired.