Last year, Southington Police Chief John Daly presented a plan to the board of police commissioners to replace a retiring lieutenant’s position with a third captain. The police board supported it and appointed Eric Daigle captain. The board of finance supported it, but the plan was met with heavy union resistance and ultimately the captain’s position died after the motion to access funds failed to pass the town council. Union criticism of Daly continued and culminated in a formal letter of complaint to the police board claiming Daly had violated police department rules, regulations and standards, alleging misuse of funds and possible criminal activities. Daly was exonerated in recent reports by the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney and by Bernard R. Sullivan, retired Commissioner of Public Safety for the State of Connecticut.
Daly sat down recently to reflect on past events and his intention to lead the police department forward.
What is your reaction to the Sullivan report that was released May 15?
I’ve known from day one that I committed no crimes. I know I am ethical. I am glad to be vindicated by an outside person, someone with Bernie Sullivan’s extensive police administrative background.
Union complaints about you started with police commission appointment of Eric Daigle to the new captain’s position. Tell me about Eric Daigle’s work for the Southington Police Department.
Eric Daigle has been working as a supernumerary which is a part-time officer for the last several years. We gave him administrative duties. He wrote grants and brought $430,000 to Southington over the past two years. He helped with some policies. He did background investigations on a few people. He came in and helped with a homicide we had two years ago.
Town council minutes give a detailed description of Eric Daigle’s qualifications. How would Daigle’s experience have applied to the captain’s position?
He specialized the last seven years in civil liabilities. That’s what his day-to-day job is. He’s a lawyer that defends police officers against lawsuits. He also drafts and revises policies for different police departments. Pretty pertinent and it would have been a benefit to the town.
Some of the rules and regulations of the Southington Police Department are very old. Some have been updated, but we have not revised our entire policy. That was the intent of this third captain. That and grants. It was more of a proactive approach to bring us up to date, into the twenty-first century.
Was it your idea to create the third captain position?
Yes. I went to the police commission in the summer. This was discussed and worked back and forth for many months. I had to go to the police commission with why we needed it,  the benefits and a cost analysis. We discussed it with Town Manager John Weichsel, Deputy Town Manager/Town Attorney Mark Sciota and Labor Attorney Fred Dorsey. We covered all the bases.
Based on the town charter, your conversations with the attorneys and on the labor agreement in force at the time, was it within your jurisdiction to create this position?
The board’s. Not mine. I have no control over that. I am an employee of the board of police commissioners. I go to my bosses with ideas. I do it all the time. I give them options that I think will improve the police department.  They don’t have to say yes to everything nor do they.
Police union members have expressed to various town boards that they are upset with the promotion process, that the captain’s position was not posted for anyone to apply. Sullivan concluded in his report that the captain’s position was outside the jurisdiction of the union labor agreement. If you had to do it over, would you post the position of captain?
Yes. I think the (members of the department) have this impression that something underhanded was done. And the last thing in my mind was doing anything wrong. My intent was to bring a qualified individual into this police department to help the town of Southington. That was my goal from the beginning.
Why do you think the union membership was so upset with Eric Daigle’s appointment to captain? 
Why do I think it upset them that much? Because it was not one of them. It was an outsider coming in. That’s it in a nutshell.
If you say to me, why would you do something like that? I’d say go back a year or so before that. The board of finance and the town council  were telling everyone to think outside the box to find ways to save money. Chief Daly thought outside the box and look what happened to him.
It was fiscally responsible. It made sense. As far as the guys, do I think I have guys here that have the potential to do work similar to what Eric Daigle would have? I do. But they would have needed training, and it would have taken a period of time.
Look at a sports analogy. Why do teams bring in free agents from other teams to play on their team when they have a minor league system? Because you are trying to be as great as you can be. Sometimes you’ve got to bring in someone from the outside who can have an immediate impact in a positive way. And that was the whole intent. It wasn’t that I was trying to say the union guys are not capable. We have a lot of smart people here.
In the union’s complaint there is a list of incidents, some go back four years, where you bring members of your family to crime scenes, to a liquor control raid and to the police department. What do you say about those incidents?
I will not go through each one individually. What I will say is that anyone that’s been put through the scrutiny that I have been put through for the six and one-half years that I have been chief can probably look back and say, “I wish I had done something differently there. Well, that probably wasn’t the smartest thing in the world.” And I agree.
The Sullivan Report noted that while you had violated no departmental rules, you had not used the best judgment in some instances by including your family. What do you take from that? What will you do differently?
Every day is a learning day. Every day is a new experience. Every day is a different day. I don’t make the same mistakes.
What you have to understand is seven years ago, I was a sergeant on this police department. I went from sergeant to captain overnight. Greg Simone and I were promoted on the same day. I was made the administrative captain April 2002, so I was in charge. He handled patrol. The chief was gone. The other two captains were gone. It was like a mass exodus. So here I am, one day, I am a sergeant, and the next day I am a captain basically running the police department. For six months, I did it. The board of police commissioners liked what I did, and I was made chief. So in a matter of six months, I went from sergeant to chief. I had no mentors, no one to say this is how we do things. I worked a lot of hours, learned on the fly, and I learned a lot. Did I make a few mistakes here and there? Absolutely. But did I do a lot of good things for this police department? I think most people in this town would say, yes, I did.
Tell me some of the good things.
Let’s see. When I took over this police department, our reputation was pretty bad. I built back a rapport with this community, with the elders and with the school system. We had a good working relationship fiscally. I was very fiscally conservative, and I improved our reputation with the board of finance. If you talk to John Moise or anyone on the board of finance, they’ll tell you that I worked hard. Before I went to a board of finance meeting, I would sit in my office and think about the worst question I could be asked, and I would have an answer for it. The same was true with John Weichsel.  I worked to earn the respect of town officials, and I think I did.
When the transfer of funds failed to pass the town  council, was that the end of the new captain’s position?
If you read the minutes to that meeting, they actually said come back through the budget process. In the budget process, John Weichsel cut it out. The charter allows the board of police commissioners to request that the board of finance reinstate the position. They thought about it, but then they decided it wasn’t in the best interest of the police department to go forward.
What is the plan for the police department moving forward?
The board just authorized me at the last police commission meeting to put in for a transfer from the lieutenant’s position that has been vacant since January, the lieutenant who retired. I will request that the position be changed to a sergeant’s position. The excess money, the $14,000 difference between a sergeant’s position and a lieutenant’s position will be transferred into a utilities account for the next fiscal year. We will post for a sergeant and have a sergeant’s test. We’re moving forward.
What about morale in your department?
I’ve had an open door policy since the day I started here. If anyone has a problem with any decision I make, I welcome them in to talk about it. We’re attempting to open up the lines of communication even further. Since this started, I’ve been meeting with the union on a monthly basis. One of their complaints was they felt that what was going to the police commission was one-sided. Now, one of the police commissioners will join us at the monthly meetings. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take communication on both parts.
The work that the third captain’s position was going to cover, the updating of the policies and procedures for the department. Who is going to do that?
No one. It is a totally different plan now. You can look at the original plan moving us to the 21st century that was designed last August when we didn’t have the economic problems we have now. Ten months later, a lot has changed. Maybe it’s not the most opportune time to think about revising all our policies. We’ll focus on the high priority policies. We’ve worked on some already. We’ll get to the rest of the policies when we can. We’re not going to be able to apply for as many grants as we wanted to. Getting the department accredited was partly about the policies. That’s now in the distant future.
Is Eric Daigle still working for the department?
He’s still a supernumerary. He’s working on grants. He just applied for four or five grants for us under the stimulus money. He’s doing as much as he can. He still has a full-time job outside of the police department.
What are you doing now to show leadership after the acrimonious events that have taken place?
Right in the beginning a very wise man told me the first thing you don’t do is get involved in throwing mud. Even if you win because you have done nothing wrong, you are still covered in mud. I’m above that. I’m the chief, and I am going to continue to do my job, and I’m not throwing mud or anything else. We’re going to continue on and do our jobs. That’s what is important to the people of Southington, that the police department do its job, and we do it well.
I’m responsible for this town 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And I think about the safety of this town all the time. It is more than just a job to me. It’s a responsibility that I take very seriously.  I know my decisions are based on what’s in the best interests of the citizens of Southington, the police department and the union. I have to take everything into consideration. It’s a balancing act.
People ask me, how have you made it through this? I have broad shoulders and thick skin. I also appreciate the words of support I’ve received from the many members of this community.