David Yaffe-Bellany Photo
Acting Chief Black at Friday’s special meeting.
New Haven firefighter Antonio Almodovar got his second promotion in nine days — to the same job.
At a sparsely attended meeting at headquarters Friday morning, the Board of Fire Commissioners formally voted to promote Almodovar to the department’s director of training.
It was a rerun of sorts of an event that took place in the same spot last week, when officials held a promotion ceremony for Almovodar in front of flashing news cameras and a crowd of fellow firefighters.
The department arranged the do-over after firefighters union President Frank Ricci crashed last week’s ceremony to point out an apparent breach of protocol in the promotion of Almodovar. Ricci (who was also the named plaintiff in the landmark anti-affirmative action Ricci v. DeStefano U.S. Supreme Court case) claimed that the Board of Fire Commissioners had not previously voted to approve the promotion. In a contentious impromptu debate with fire brass, Ricci argued that the procedural slip-up could leave the department vulnerable to lawsuits.
After last week’s ceremony, Acting Fire Chief Ralph Black and Fire Commissioner William Celentano told the Independent that the commissioners approved the promotion at their May 31 meeting. But an audio recording of the meeting, as well as minutes provided by the department, contradicted those claims.
So Almodovar was summoned back Friday to make it official.
Almodovar.
Almodovar — who said last week that he did not resent the interruption to his promotion ceremony — stood in the back of the meeting room Friday, his head resting against a nearby shelf.
Black and Celentano declined to comment Friday on the reason for the do-over. But the fact that the department scheduled the session — a two-minute-long special meeting in which the board voted unanimously to approve the promotion — appeared to vindicate the concerns Ricci raised.
City Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter — who spoke up during the first ceremony to call the promotion legitimate — said the follow-up session was arranged to “clarify that all policies and procedures … were followed.”
“If we didn’t do this, there would be doubt,” Carter said. “And I want to clear up any and all doubt that the list was approved, it was valid, that the number one candidate is Antonio Almodovar.”
Carter added that he has not read the minutes of the May 31 meeting and does not know what took place.
“If you listen to various versions, it’s 50 this way, 50 that way,” he said. He declined to read a copy of the minutes — which state that “no recommendation was made” for director of training — open on a reporter’s phone.
“I don’t want to look at them right now,” he said. “I think today, this morning, we did the right thing. So trying to prove a point doesn’t negate all the other stuff. I mean what’s the point?”
Mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer said in a statement that the meeting was conducted to “adjust a minor, technical matter regarding the recent, proper, and legitimate promotion of Antonio Almodovar.”
Ricci, who skipped the second meeting to attend his daughter’s wedding, called the session a clear acknowledgement that the chief’s office violated department protocol.
“The public deserves better,” Ricci remarked. “The cover up is always worse than the act.”