BRIDGEPORT — State officials have concluded that Mayor Joe Ganim violated the usage rules when he employed Connecticut’s emergency alert system to criticize an electricity provider and aggravated hundreds of people who then unsubscribed from the emergency alert system.
“A consequence of this message is that many residents unsubscribed from CT ALERT and now will no longer receive critical life-saving notifications,” wrote William Youell, director of statewide emergency telecommunications.
“There were 457 subscribers who responded directly to the message requesting they be removed from the system and as many as 1,700 residents are believed to have opted out of the system based on the timing of the message and the opt out requests,” Youell wrote.
Youell’s recent letter to the Ganim administration, which The Connecticut Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, was in response to the mayor’s use of the CT ALERT technology last month following Tropical Storm Isaias.
The city faces no penalties but was strongly advised to review emergency notification protocols.
“We’re trying to protect the integrity of the system and want citizens to have the same level of access to notifications in emergency situations,” said Brian Foley, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, told The Post.
Ganim in a statement for this story said: “We greatly appreciate their input upon review, as well as their assistance in all of our attempts to get the UI company to return power to the thousands of Bridgeport residents.”
Isaias struck Aug. 4 and left hundreds of thousands of state residents without power for days. Many elected officials publicly lambasted the state’s two major utility companies — Eversource and United Illuminating — for a lack of preparedness and too-slow response to the outages.
Ganim complained to the media that his personal calls in the storms’ immediate aftermath to UI, which serves Bridgeport and New Haven, were ignored.
But only Ganim took that public shaming to the next level. On Aug. 6, he activated the emergency alert system — normally reserved by municipal and state officials for widespread communications about imminent threats like severe weather, downed power lines, missing persons and criminal activity — to target UI by text and phone.
Ganim’s text read, “Cities like Bridgeport need to take priority in recovery and restoration. We have vulnerable residents trapped in their apartments in need of life assistance. Join us in urging the UI to turn the power back on in Bridgeport.”
The text included a contact phone number for the utility company as well as one for the city to seek assistance on storm damage.
Ganim’s phone message was introduced by the standard pre-recording: “Standby for an emergency message from CT ALERT.”
“Hi, this is Mayor Joe Ganim. Like you, I’m outraged by the irresponsibility and arrogance of the power companies in this state, and specifically the United Illuminating company here in the city of Bridgeport,” the message began.
He alleged the utility “ignored us” and was poorly prepared, and that he had instructed the municipal law department to “explore and take legal action if necessary.”
“Please join me in calling the UI company and telling them, ‘Turn the power in Bridgeport on now,’” the message concluded. It then instructed anyone who required municipal assistance to visit the city’s website.
In response, the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection launched a review of Ganim’s use of CT ALERT, resulting in Youell’s letter. Youell listed all the “activation criteria,” including whether “other means of disseminating the information (was) inadequate,” and found Bridgeport had not met those guidelines on Aug. 6.
“This message was not a warning of an emergency which would assist residents to take protective action to avoid impact to life and safety,” Youell wrote. “In our view, it was a specific message of complaint regarding the electric utilities and a call to action for residents to contact (them) to demand that the power be turned on. Therefore, we believe this is an inappropriate use of the CT ALERT system and not in compliance with the CT ALERT ... policy.”
Ganim said Bridgeport has filed a complaint against UI as part of the outage response review Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Authority opened following Isaias.
However, Bridgeport has not moved forward with the lawsuit the mayor had initially threatened.
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State: Ganim's use of emergency system to criticize UI went too far - CT Insider
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