Fat Fascist Fu*k is about to be paid $675,000 by town taxpayers
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Fired former chief of detectives Mark Kordick is going to settle his wrongful termination suit against Greenwich for $675,000 after the former head of the Greenwich Democrat Party, now judge, Ed Krummeich denied town’s motion to dismiss. (D.C. justice comes to Greenwich for this political trial).
You can read the details of the suit here, but what really ticks me off is that this dimwitted Nazi should have been fired way back in 2015
Bob Horton:
One day in late August, local political activist Arthur “Cort” Wrotnowski placed flyers on car windshields in the Island Beach ferry parking lot, hoping to drum up a crowd that would listen to his take on the perils of the Common Core, the controversial federal and state educational reform initiative.
His flyers were not compelling enough to get people to give up the outdoors on one of the last beautiful Friday nights of the summer; only two people attended the early evening event at Town Hall on August 28. But the one-page notice did catch the eye of Greenwich Police Captain Mark Kordick, head of the Detective Division and an almost three-decade veteran of the force. He immediately drafted an email to School Superintendent William McKersie, informing the schools chief of the anti-Common Core meeting. That set off a chain of events that resulted Thursday in First Selectmen and Police Commissioner Peter Tesei starting an investigation into Captain Kordick’s behavior.
In an email sent over his signature as Captain of Detectives, Kordick told McKersie about Wrotnowski’s plan to hold a public forum in Town Hall “in the event your office wanted to send an official (or off the record) representative to attend the public event.” He attached a scan of the flyer and identified Wrotnowski as “among other things, (he is) apparently both an anti-Common Core activist and participant in the anti-President Obama “birther” movement.
McKersie replied that he and his staff knew of Wrotnowski’s opposition, but would not be sending a representative to the event, off the record or otherwise.
The head of detectives sent a second email to McKersie, after the anti-Common Core confab, with this report: “I’ve been informed that the meeting was sparsely attended. Other than Mr. Wrotnowski only two persons appeared to be in attendance at around 7:30 p.m. That headcount is exclusive of an amateur videographer who was recording an impassioned PowerPointpresentation being given by Mr. Wrotnowksi.”
“It’s outrageous,” Wrotnowski said when I spoke to him earlier this week. He had received copies of the emails in mid-September. “I am puzzled why they would have a problem with someone talking about public education in a public setting. Frankly, I still am under the foolish impression that this is America and it’s still your right to speak freely. (The police) feel perfectly free to skulk around in the shadows.”
Wrotnowski framed the issues in his own style, but he raised the right questions. Is it proper for the police to be involved in gathering and disseminating intelligence about political action and speech? Is there any place for police activity in political dialogue?
When I received the Kordick/McKersie email thread in mid-September, I asked Kordick, Police Chief James Heavey and Tesei to explain the reasons behind Kordick’s communications to the school superintendent. Were there any public safety issues involved? Was Wrotnowski a known threat to public safety? Why did Kordick feel compelled to prepare a short political profile of Wrotnowski for McKersie?
“I expect the Chief and specifically Captain Kordick will provide us a thorough response to the questions you pose. Without knowing all of the facts surrounding the situation other than the ones you presented, the situation as presented is of concern to me,” Tesei said.
Chief Heavey did not respond, but Kordick said that Wrotnowski’s meeting posed no public safety threat. He added, “The police department exists as a community service organization as well as a public safety agency.” It takes a very broad and slightly twisted definition of community service to include political surveillance. I don’t think you’ll find that service on the menu provided by Greenwich Community Answers. But apparently you do at the Public Safety Complex.
Kordick further said that he wrote the follow-up report on the meeting “to help the public schools track local interest in this topic.” Apparently the detective did not believe McKersie when he said he and his staff were well aware of Wrotnowski’s “advocacy” against Common Core.
In another email exchange this week, Kordick took serious exception to my characterizing his actions as police surveillance. “Use of the term ‘surveillance’ implies some manner of surreptitious monitoring…This is not a case of anyone being ‘under surveillance,’ but rather me simply paying attention,” he wrote. Finding a flyer in the Island Beach parking lot is just “paying attention.” The captain of detectives providing a report to the superintendent of schools on a political meeting and the politics of a private citizen is not just “paying attention.” It is completely inappropriate police behavior.
Kordick also wrote, “Mr. Wrotnowski has been quite unabashed about his political leanings, is a member (or perhaps recently a former member) of the Republican Town Committee and established a measure of notoriety with me and others when he initiated a lawsuit against Connecticut’s Secretary of State over the inclusion of Barack Obama’s name on the Presidential ballot some years ago citing ineligibility based on Mr. Obama’s birthplace. I know these things about Mr. Wrotnowski because he is a long-time, notable and outspoken member of the community where I also live and have been a police officer for nearly three decades - not because he is the target of a secret government conspiracy. If you’d like an official denial, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Wrotnowski has never been under surveillance by me or any other member of the Greenwich Police Department.”
“To be honest, I’m surprised that you, Mr. Wrotnowski or any other member of our community would find the idea of public employees being attentive to conditions and aware of the social and political environment both in Town and among its residents to be objectionable. Commitment to our community and its values by Town workers is one of the things that makes Greenwich a great place to live,” Kordick added.
Kordick’s choice of language is interesting, He says the Police Department is a community services agency, and that his interest in Mr. Wrotnowski is an example of his “commitment to our community and its values.” I am sure Captain Kordick genuinely believes what he writes, and that should be very concerning. One of the most senior police officers in town, the man in charge of all detectives, thinks this level of attention to people’s political views and actions is part of his job.
Kordick was, and remains, a hotheaded, angry man, who was consistently in trouble for confronting town officials and citizens over the decades and should have never been admitted on the force to begin with, let alone tolerated for 30 years. What a shame that he’s now going to collect a huge sum of money in addition to his undeserved pension. Bah.