Submitted by Jeff Ramer, Greenwich
When Fred Camillo was previously running for First Selectman, a senior police officer, a Captain Mark Kordick (who apparently did not like Mr. Camillo very much), posted signs around Town that suggested a close connection between Mr. Camillo and Donald Trump. Given Officer Kordick’s employment at our Police Department, it was not surprising that Officer Kordick was secretive about his authorship. Incensed, people connected to Mr. Camillo’s campaign employed a little cunning and some misrepresentation to milk from the sign printer the identity of their customer.
Officer Kordick was summarily fired.
Whatever you think of the signs, arguably Officer Kordick had a First Amendment Free Speech Right to post them and no obligation to declare his authorship.
Importantly, our First Selectman Fred Camillo denied that he had anything to do with the firing, and denied that the firing was personal or retaliatory. The firing, he claimed, was purely the decision of others and based upon unrelated issues of poor job performance. He really knew nothing about it.
The misfortune for Mr. Camillo is that his emails and texts were summoned by Officer Kordick’s attorneys in the ensuing litigation, and they cast a different flavor:
“He [Officer Kordick] is the biggest scum bag of all. He better pray that I do not win because I would be police commissioner and he will be gone.” – Camillo text 10/28/19
That fat f**k Kordick, he’ll get his too.” – Camillo email 10/25/19
The point became important because the First Selectman spent $1.5 million of the Town’s taxpayer money on the lawyers’ fees and settlement funds on something that should have been a private squabble, not involving the Town or its tax dollars.
During the past year, the First Selectman asserted his powers, claiming the right to fill vacancies on the School Board. By statute (CGS 10-219), a vacancy on the School Board is filled by the vote of the remaining members of the Board. Our First Selectman, however, asserted that by a different statute (CGS 7-107), after 30 days, he may fill the vacancy. In response, the Board of Ed hurried to fill the vacancy, and did so, naming a Republican to fill the open Republican seat.
Asserting what he claimed was a procedural flaw committed by the Board of Ed in its haste, Mr. Camillo acted the next day to appoint a different Republican, and then sued the School Board to impose his will. The Town suing the Town, and the Town paying the legal fees of everybody. I have no idea why the First Selectman thinks it is important for the First Selectman to appoint members of the Board of Ed, but pretty clearly this exercise of his self-importance may cost the Town perhaps $1 million in legal fees (and counting).
During all this time, the Town was entering a crisis in its aging fire fighting equipment. The Town equips six fire stations, with thirteen major pieces of fire apparatus. The manufacturer of most of this equipment, Pierce, has a 36 month lead time from order to delivery. For years, our discipline was the orderly replacement of one piece of equipment each year, and to hold the most recently retired pieces as backup. However, the First Selectman and the Republican members of the BET interrupted this orderly policy and ceased vehicle replacement, citing an imagined need for extreme Town austerity.
The folly did not take long to reveal itself.
In early September, 2023, the aging front line ladder truck failed its safety inspections, and was mandatorily pulled off the line. Because the Town had not funded a replacement of a ladder truck in nine years, responsibility fell to a twenty-two year old back up, which promptly experienced a hydraulic failure and it too was pulled off the line. We looked then to an even older piece and it too failed to function. In desperation, our Fire Department approached Stamford, requesting from them as “mutual aid” the response of their spanking new ladder trucks to our fire events.
If you were desperately hanging at the bedroom window of your burning home, awaiting fire rescue from a ladder truck coming from a fire station in Stamford, likely you would be a Crispy Critter by the time it arrived.
Quite apart from the stupidity of not maintaining our fire fighting apparatus, the $1.5 million of Town taxpayer dollars that our First Selectman spent on his private squabble with Officer Kordick could have purchased the missing ladder truck. And a $1 million spent on his assertion of the right to appoint Board of Ed members could buy another.
If the use of public tax money to weaponize what should have been a private fight, or if the firing of a Public employee for his exercise of Free Speech in opposition to the First Selectman’s candidacy, or if the telling of a fib to the Public to hide his vindictive behavior, or for that matter, if the use of tax dollars on lawyers’ fees to impose the First Selectman’s will on who should appoint the members of the Board of Education, if these things seem Trumpian to you, well then maybe Officer Kordick had a point all along.
Jeff Ramer is a resident of Greenwich who served in the government of Greenwich in a number of capacities, most recently as a Democratic member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation for 16 years.
Note: The deadline to submit letters to the editor about candidates for consideration in the Nov 4, 2025 municipal elections is Oct 28, 2025 at 12:00 noon.