11 Hamden Public Safety Officials Retire

Eleven public safety officials — including Hamden’s two deputy police chiefs — announced their impending retirements on Wednesday to the town retirement board.

Nine of those individuals, including three firefighter captains, the battalion chief, an assistant fire chief, and a fire lieutenant, are leaving the fire department by the end of the month. The two deputy police chiefs were the only ones to announce their retirement from the police department.

Deputy Police Chief Boguslaw Kicak requested a service-related disability retirement effective Nov. 20. Deputy Police Chief Gabriel Lupo plans to leave before Nov. 27 after requesting standard retirement.

“It will impact operations, there’s no doubt,” Chief Sullivan told the Independent on Thursday.

“Service to the Hamden community will not be affected during this process. However the new retirements, especially when coupled with existing vacancies, will put pressure on current members to work additional hours for station coverage … Nine fire department retirements on the same day is unusual…” Fire Chief Gary Merwede wrote to the Independent in an email.

Why did 11 public safety officials request their retirements at once?

“An unimaginable 11 public safety professionals (police & firefighter) retiring, most not expected… Not a good day for Hamden public safety teams,” Mayor Curt Leng posted on Twitter Wednesday, with the hashtag, ​“ElectionsHaveConsequences.” Leng lost to incoming Mayor Lauren Garrett in a Sept. 14 Democratic primary after running against her on a pro-policing platform.

“We need to stop this divisive rhetoric,” Garrett said in response. She pointed out nine of the 11 officials were firefighters. ​“The conversations that we’ve been having for the last several months around policing aren’t showing us that a lot of police officers are retiring — and we haven’t had a lot of conversations about the fire department during the election … My record on funding the fire department [on the Legislative Council] has been making sure that firefighters have what they need to effectively do their job.”

She continued, ​“The fact that it’s a lot of firefighters retiring versus police officers shows that police officers are still ready to do the work.”

Chief Sullivan offered his perspective: ​“They’re both older employees near the end of their careers,” he said of the two deputy chiefs. ​“I don’t think there’s one specific reason. I haven’t had a meeting with them on why they were leaving; I usually do that near the days they’re leaving.” He said he didn’t think that the change in administrations ​“played a factor.”

Chief Merwede said of the nine fire retirements, ​“it is likely that [since] the firefighter’s pension agreement is waiting on the start of arbitration [it] was a factor in the decision-to-retire process for at least some of these employees.”

Chief Sullivan said that one of the retirees is a union member and one is not. That means Sullivan will hire a replacement for the union member from within the department, and Mayor Garrett will appoint a replacement for the nonunion position. Her proposed candidate will then require Legislative Council approval.

Sullivan said he already has a list of possible candidates for the position and hopes to fill the position as soon as possible: ​“If I could give someone a promotion the next day, I would do it.”

Garrett said she is far from selecting a possible appointee, but that she is looking for somebody ​“who envisions the department becoming more trauma informed and community policing based.”

“Diversity is an important factor,” she also said. During her first budget season on Council, she recalled now then-Police Chief Tom Wydra reporting that there were a total of eight women in the police department and none had been promoted. ​“Since then, diversity has increased,” she reflected. ​“What we’ve not seen enough is women and police officers of color being promoted.”

Fire Chief Gary Merwede said that he will begin the process of filling new vacancies in December, beginning with the newly empty battalion chief position. He said the Hamden Civil Service Department, which also saw the retirement of its director, Kenneth Kelley, on Wednesday will announce the recruitment of entry-level firefighter candidates already certified as nationally registered paramedics in the near future. ​“We are hoping for a diverse applicant pool of highly motivated people that want to work in a busy and well-regarded fire department,” Merwede said.

Garrett added that she is currently holding office hours in the town government center to meet with department heads and discuss the upcoming transition of administrations.