Paul Bass Photo
Blanchard at announcement of her promotion.
As he brought four new assistants on board, Police Chief Dean Esserman said he plans to have them switch roles “every few years” in part to become prepared to run the department themselves.
Esserman made the remark following a City Hall press conference Tuesday evening to announce his four new assistant chiefs: Thaddeus Reddish, Luiz Casanova, Denise Blanchard, and Archie Generoso. The Police Commission, whose members accompanied Esserman at the press conference, is expected to formally approve his choices Wednesday evening.
Once approved, Casanova will oversee the patrol division; Reddish, internal affairs and “professional standards”; Blanchard, administration; Generoso, investigative units.
For now.
They’ll eventually trade those portfolios, under Esserman’s plan.
“It broadens everyone to take different commands,” Esserman said. That not only readies them for a possible future job as police chief, he argued — it also “makes them better assistants” right now.
His plan addresses an ongoing criticism of the police department over the past decade: That it has gone through assistant chiefs like Spinal Tap drummers, while continually reaching outside New Haven for new chiefs. Esserman is the third straight chief to come from an out-of-town department.
His choice of local cops for assistants and his plan to rotate them met with praise Monday from Hill Alderwoman and Democratic Town Chairwoman Jackie James.
She said the city has repeatedly sent the wrong message by failing to groom local assistants to take the top job. “If they’re not qualified,” she said, “what are we doing wrong?”
“I think it’s wonderful,” James (pictured with Reddish after the press conference) said of the rotation idea. “They need to get the experience at every level.”
“That’s very important,” agreed Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez. “People want to see the next chief come from within the department.”
Officials will have to sell aldermen on another aspect of Monday’s appointments: A change in the way assistant chiefs’ pensions are calculated.
The change was geared toward enabling Casanova to take the job. Casanova faced a problem: He hasn’t served 20 years as a cop yet, and assistant chiefs don’t get union protection. So if he were to have to leave the assistant chief’s job before reaching 20 years, he could be out of a pension. He has four years to go.
Given the recent history of disappearing assistant chiefs, that was an understandable worry.
City officials came up with a plan to help him out: They will ask the Board of Aldermen to approve a measure to allow assistant police or fire chiefs to cash in 30 days of sick time to add an extra year of service toward qualifying for a pension. That number 30 may change, but the overall concept is expected to receive aldermanic approval.
If it doesn’t, Casanova would have up to a year to return to a previous rank and thus safeguard his pension.
Police union President Arpad Tolnay said he said he’s worried that the proposal is being tailored to one person: Casanova. “Who’s to say they’ll ever consider appointing someone else with 16 years [of experience]?” he asked.
“I’m hoping this is done properly, because according to our contract you have to have 20 years” to buy back sick time, Tolnay said. “I don’t want them to open up a Pandora’s box. You do it for one, you do it for all. Does it have to be just for the assistant chief’s position?”
Tolnay also said a bigger problem is the fact that the assistant chief’s job has become as secure as “a helicopter gunner in Vietnam; they don’t last very long. Every time there’s a new chief, you have to get rid of the assistant chiefs? They’re there for a reason. In my opinion, it’s destructive.”
Less than a year ago, officials announced the naming of three new assistant chiefs: They’re all gone now. One left soon after Esserman arrived as the new police chief. Esserman asked the other two to leave, along with another assistant chief already in the job, so he could pick his own team.
The last several years have seen a revolving door of assistant chiefs, many of whom lasted only a year or a few years in the job, including Peter Reichard, Stephanie Redding, Roy Brown, Ken Gillespie, and Tom Wheeler. One assistant chief, Ariel Melendez, left amid a controversy over his confiscating a citizens’ camera and ordering his video destroyed.
The emphasis Monday was clearly on keeping these chiefs in the department — and how they came up through the department, unlike some of the recent assistants.
Three of the four are currently serving in the police department. The fourth, Generoso (pictured), is a retired sergeant who ran the Dwight-Kensington area at the dawn of community policing, then oversaw the department’s narcotics unit. He’s now an investigator with the state’s attorney’s office in Meriden. At Monday’s press conference he made a point of mentioning that he grew up two blocks from the current police station.
Denise Blanchard currently runs the police training academy. She previously ran internal affairs.
Reddish runs the Newhallville/East Rock policing district. He grew up in Newhallville.
Melissa Bailey Photo
Before overseeing patrol as a lieutenant, Casanova (pictured) served as top cop in Fair Haven.
Congratulations, Thad.
Now, can we set up a pool on how long each AC will last? I know it is crass, but come on.