New Haven Independent

“We did a thorough investigation,” said the Chair, JoAnne McGuigan, as she described the Commission’s investigation into the matter. “We talked to the people involved.”

Not quite. This is how she did it. First she convened an ad hoc committee of the Commission. The Commission serves as the civilian overseer of the department and makes policy in virtually every area. Apparently ad hoc committees do not need a quorum because McGuigan’s committee had only two members, herself and John Giordano, the newest and least experienced member of the six- member Commission. It had a third member, Robert Gott, but a family situation kept him away on the day of the committee’s investigation. Deputy Chief John DeCarlo was present as an observer.

The investigation took place on a Monday, June 27 at 10 a.m. at police headquarters. It was not open to the public. The commission went immediately into executive session at 10:01, though it is not clear why. Giordano made the request. The committee emerged at 11:30 a.m. No votes were taken. How could there be? There were only two members.

Oh, yes, witnesses. Two were interviewed, Chief Robert Gill and Detective Duncan Ayr, who investigated Unk. What they said was not made public.

Ninety minutes later and they were All Done. Whitewash completed. The “committee” of two found that the department acted in a “proper fashion within its statutory requirements, did not violate the rights of any citizen and acted without prejudice.” That means that as far as the Commission is concerned, the department did not violate Unk’s rights. In short it was okay for the police to investigate DaRos because a complaint had been made that he might have committed a criminal act in possessing slabs of granite at his stone masonry business. End of case.

And the complainant? None other than Ed Marcus, who parlayed his authority as town counsel to send Detective Ayr out to question Da Ros. Was Marcus called to discuss his actions before the Police Commission’s ad hoc committee of two? Nope. Was Mike Milici called? Nope. He is the former Democratic Party chairman, who had an as yet unnamed photographer snap photos of Unk’s granite, photos Marcus showed Ayr in Cheryl Morris’s First Selectwoman’s office late one Friday afternoon. Was Morris called. Nope.

Cheryl Morris has said that both she and Ed Marcus were concerned that the town was not getting its fair share of the royalties from the Stony Creek Quarry, a contract and performance issue that should not involve police action. Morris and Marcus have in the past said that the police visit to Unk was part of a broader inquiry and Chairman McGuigan seems to have accepted this view on its face. Marcus, Morris and Milici have since apologized publicly to DaRos. The short-lived criminal inquiry ended when DaRos produced receipts for his granite. But many residents are upset because they fear living in a town where the police can be used to settle scores against a political rival.

At the June police commission meeting, McGuigan repeatedly said the Commission was not a “political board;” she said it so often one wonders if the lady doth protest too much. After all, how could her board be a political board? Let’s see. Jill Marcus, the wife of Ed Marcus, sits on the board. She did not resign when her husband became town attorney. Bruce Morris, husband of Cheryl, a former state senator and an influential member of the board, did not resign when his wife became First Selectwoman. Indeed Cheryl nominated Bruce for another term and voted on his appointment with Ed Marcus’s blessing. (Jill Marcus and Bruce Morris also are business partners.)

The newest member, John Giordano, a lifelong Democrat and a friend of both couples became an “unaffiliated” voter so that Mrs. Morris could recommend him to the commission. Mrs. Morris and Democratic Second Selectman Dick Sullivan dumped Dan Bullard, a Republican, for Giordano, a Democrat in disguise, said Republican John Opie, the third Selectman, at the time. This rearrangement of the 6 member board runs contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1929 State Act creating the Commission. The Act says that “not more than three members” of the commission shall “at the same time, be members of the same political party.”

This so-called investigation can be understood if one considers the current culture of the Branford Police Commission. A majority on this board are, well, chums: Bruce and Jill, who are friends and business partners and McGuigan who is a close friend of the Marcuses and Giordano who is a close friend of the Morrises.

Chairwoman McGuigan began the 7:30 p.m.Monday meeting with a discussion of the committee’s findings. This part of the meeting was over at 7:40. Ed Marcus’s name never came up. Nor did Milici’s. Who took the pictures? Not addressed. Who paid for the photos? Not addressed. Who told Milici to hire a photographer in the first place? No information. Why was Marcus in Morris’s office anyway? Nada. Inquiry discussion over in ten minutes.

Oops. Not quite. Bruce Morris, husband of Cheryl, reminded McGuigan to read the June 22nd letter McGuigan had apparently requested from Michael Dearington, the States’ Attorney in charge of criminal matters for the New Haven area, including Branford. Dearington’s letter confirms that the police department “handled the matter properly.” Jill Marcus told the New Haven Register after the meeting: “Once we had his opinion …that was closure, the final word,” she said.

But Dearington’s letter also points out a key fact: that Marcus made a criminal complaint against Unk, even though Marcus has defended his actions as somehow related to a town inquiry into the operation of the quarry.

The fact that Marcus used the police to begin with and that both the chief and detective Ayr clearly felt uncomfortable is also reflected in the letter because a member of the detective division, presumably Ayr, telephoned Dearington for advice back in April when these events unfolded. If this had been a normal inquiry, how likely would it be for a detective to reach out to a top state criminal officer?

The McGuigan inquiry centered on police conduct and not on an effort by the town attorney to manipulate the police. The manipulation of the police is the larger, more significant issue and it is the one the public is most distressed about. Nor did the Commission suggest publicly the steps to be taken to prevent the police from being used again in this manner. So in this sense, the Commission failed when it concentrated on whether the police acted wrongly in going to Unk’s shop in the first place.

The apparent reason for the shift was that Commission member Jon Grossman said at last month’s Commission meeting that the police should not have listened to Marcus to begin with because Marcus had no power over police deployment. The police, he said, had compromised the “basic principles of police practices.” On Monday Grossman retreated from that position, saying he now understood after an hour long conversation with Chief Gill that when the police receive a criminal complaint, no matter where it comes from, they have to investigate.

But Grossman did not retreat from his views about Marcus. A true and robust exchange of ideas would have included Grossman on the panel, but that, of course, did not happen. Of all the commissioners, only he had the courage to comment on Marcus’s actions on Monday night. “My opinion is that he acted improperly.”

And while the police chief was not asked at the meeting, he did tell the Eagle in a previous interview that in his eight years as chief he has never been put in this position with a town attorney.

Did Bruce Morris and Jill Marcus keep their distance from the McGuigan inquiry? We do not know. But on a much smaller matter, Mrs. Marcus voted with other Commission members to give herself a “hidden driveway” sign to be placed at 100 Stony Creek Road, the gated estate of the Marcuses. It probably didn’t even occur to her that perhaps she should not participate in the vote. Members of the public raised their eyebrows when she voted “Aye.”

Afterwards, the Eagle asked Commissioner McGuigan why the “committee” had not interviewed Ed Marcus or Mike Milici or Cheryl Morris. Her answer: The press was concentrating on one narrow aspect of the Stony Creek Quarry issue, that the town’s investigation was larger that that.

We’re not sure this answer is responsive in explaining why these key participants were not called. But we
know who the losers are: the citizens of Branford. Maybe the Representative Town (RTM) meeting, which is to take up this issue at tonight’s meeting at Canoe Brook Center at 8 p.m., will do better.
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