EDITORIAL: Seymour police board caves on cop

By Opinion Staff

Members of Seymour’s police commission can’t seem to make up their minds about appropriate police conduct, or get their stories straight about their own behavior.
They have decided to reverse the demotion of Ronald Goodmaster from detective sergeant to detective. The board also decided to reverse Goodmaster’s two suspensions, citing the cost of the officer’s appeals.
The commission acted just days after a hearing officer for the Freedom of Information Commission recommended rejection of Goodmaster’s claim that the commission had violated FOI laws while considering his demotion.
Disciplining Goodmaster was certainly warranted. Although twice contacted by a New Jersey parole officer, Goodmaster did not alert fellow officers to the suspected presence in town of a felon wanted on a weapons charge. Officers who went to the fugitive’s home in January 2011 were unaware that he was wanted in another state. Potentially, they had been put in danger by Goodmaster’s silence. The police commission split, voting 3-2 to demote Goodmaster in June.
A police union attorney challenged the vote, arguing that the three commissioners who approved the demotion — Lucy McConologue, Steve Chucta and Frank Conroy — had held an illegal meeting prior to the vote.
Not so, the commissioners claimed: A May 25, 2011, meeting had nothing to do with Goodmaster. Instead, they met to discuss an upcoming senior center picnic.
The FOI hearing officer, Tracie Brown, found the claim “not credible.” That’s a polite way of saying they were lying.
For certain, the commissioners could not get their stories straight. In June, McConologue, the senior center’s director, said she had called Conroy to her office to discuss the picnic. The pair discussed the picnic for 1½ hours.
In testimony at a January FOI hearing, the commissioners said Conroy showed up unannounced for brief, 10-minute discussion of the picnic. Chucta also showed up unannounced.
The union suspected an illegal commission meeting at which the three commissioners decided Goodmaster’s fate.
In the future, the commissioners should take more care to avoid the appearance that they are colluding to conduct public business in secret by ignoring rules about advance notice of meetings and quorums of the commission.