New Haven Independent

The two issues were the subject of a meeting Thursday night of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (pictured) and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz came to speak about the main topic on the table, a resolution to have the committee research New Haven’s ability to eliminate or reduce the pensions of city employees who commit crimes on the job.

Hill Alderman Jorge Perez (pictured), introduced the resolution along with Annex Alderman Alphonse Paollilo, Jr., after two narcotics cops, Billy White and Justen Kasperzyk, were arrested in an FBI corruption investigation. Their cases are pending. After their arrests, White retired with a controversial $91,000 pension. Kasperzyk put in for a $41,013 disability pension, which received approval Thursday. Perez said he wants to differentiate between crimes involving the workplace and unrelated indiscretions. The aldermen also said they want to take into consideration the effect of reduced or revoked pensions on spouses and children who were not involved in or aware of the crime.

Blumenthal and Bysiewicz have already been researching the legal possibilities of such legislation, in the wake of a string of corruption convictions of state officials in the past few years. At Thursday’s hearing they offered their personal expertise and access to state files on pension reduction resolutions. They also advised aldermen to sit down with union officials and other objectors in order to address their concerns. They said if New Haven were to gain the power to reduce or revoke convicted city employees’ pensions, it would become the first city in the nation to do so. Thirteen states have similar judicial or administrative processes in place. Blumenthal and Bysiewicz been involved in four so-far unsuccessful efforts to convince the legislature to make Connecticut the 14th.

“It is amazing to me,” Bysiewicz said, “that after all we’ve been through as a state, we haven’t passed this.”

“When an official betrays public trust, he should not receive public pension, which is taxpayer money going into his pocket,” Blumenthal told the aldermen. Another concern is the effect of reduced or revoked pensions on spouses and children who were not involved in or aware of the crime.

High Point

Also on the table during Thursday’s meeting was New Haven’s efforts to obtain a $150,000 federal grant to implement an anti-violence intervention program in a soon-to-be-selected New Haven neighborhood. Carolyn Bove (pictured on the right beside police Sgt. Petishia Adger), a grant writer for the police department, explained the initiative, which is modeled on a successful community-policing program in High Point, N.C. Click here, here, here, here and here to read previous Independent articles on that program.

The program would start small, with a one-year grant that will target 20 to 40 “mid-level” street dealers heading down a road to violence. Working with the Christian Community Commission, family members, and prosecutors, cops would try to steer those people to training or rehab programs rather than jail. Bove clarified that, despite a partnership with the Christian Community Center, the intervention program would not be faith-based.