Police Chief Appointment Will Go to Referendum [With Video]

Democratic candidate for the Middletown Board of Education Ed McKeon announced Thursday he had collected enough signatures — 2,170 — representing 10 percent of registered voters, to place the appointment of 26-month Acting Police Chief Patrick McMahon on the November ballot.

The Common Council for the second time in three months. In an 8-4 vote along party lines, Democrats opposed a resolution confirming McMahon's appointment; Republicans approved it.

"I'm flattered," McMahon said. "I just want the job that I think I'm entitled to, that I've earned, that I've worked very hard for, that I'm qualified for. I have the education, I certainly have the connection with this community."

"I don't like being a lightening rod. I don't shy away from controversy, I certainly don't look for it ... to that end, I think it goes to the foundation of community policing here in Middletown," McMahon said.

In attendance at a press conference at police headquarters were the chief, independent Democratic mayoral challenger Christine Bourne, Town Clerk Sandra Russo-Driska, and many of the individuals who collected signatures for the petition, like Maria Zimmitti, Ed Dypa and McKeon's wife Lucy McMillan.

"I’m happy to announce that the Town Clerk has just verified that we have collected enough signatures to put Middletown’s first-ever, citizen-generated initiative question on the ballot for this year’s election, Nov. 8," McKeon said.

"That ballot initiative question will read: Shall Resolution 7-1, as proposed at the Jan. 3, 2011, meeting of the Common Council, approving and confirming the appointment of Patrick McMahon as Chief of Police for the City of Middletown, BE APPROVED AND ADOPTED?”

"I want to thank everyone of the 2,170 registered voters who signed the petition, and especially to those who helped collect the hundreds of signatures," McKeon said.

Mayor Sebastian N. Giuliano was at the announcement. "I think the Council is now out of it," he explained. "That's my interpretation of the Charter. If it passes, as Ed said, and I'm in the mayor's office, he gets sworn in."

Giuliano also spoke to the chief's detractors.

"The authority of the Council that's in the Charter came from the people. The people reserve this perogative to themseves, so where's the usurpation?"

Democratic Mayoral candidate Dan Drew spoke earlier in the day about the chief referendum.

"I absolutely will not try to stop anything," Drew said. "The Common Council does allow any question related to an issue of public interest to get onto the ballot, which I understand that Ed did. The voters will express their will one way or another.

"The only way legally to appoint a director-level position in the city of Middletown under the Charter is for a mayor to make the appointment and the Common Council to subsequently confirm that appinointment," Drew said.

McKeon explained his reasons Thursday for pursuing his petition.

"The reason I pursued this initiative is simple. I was angry and frustrated (a frustration, with partisan politics, I might add, that is shared by nearly everyone I spoke with who signed this petition). 

"My own experience with Pat McMahon, who I don’t always see eye to eye with, is that he’s a qualified, committed and dedicated officer.  He’s outspoken, occasionally blunt, sometimes to his own detriment.  But in my experience, he’s always willing to listen, even if he doesn’t agree with you. And if he doesn’t agree, he’ll tell you.

"He is deeply involved in the community, and he has a track record of exemplary service day to day, and during some exceptional tragedies in town like the explosion of the Kleen Energy plant.

"Members of the Common Council have suggested that the initiative is not binding. I disagree.

"The charter language for an initiative is quite broad, citing “any matter of public interest” and that the results of the balloting “shall not be binding, unless approved by a simple majority of those voting.”

"If the initiative passes, as I believe it will, to have the Council deny the appointment of Pat McMahon to Police Chief would be to laugh in the faces of everyone who signed this petition, and everyone who votes in favor of his appointment.

"If the initiative passes, which I believe it will, it puts enormous pressure on Chief McMahon to continue his record of exemplary police and community service."

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