Joe Ganim

At the time Ganim took office, the city's dire financial straits caused it to be the only municipality in Connecticut to have its finances under the control of a state board. The state board had ordered the city to raise its property taxes by 18 percent to close a $16 million budget shortfall for the 1991–92 fiscal year.[5] Ganim also campaigned on a law and order platform, promising to hire a hundred new city police officers to combat crime.[5] One reason why Ganim was elected was because "there were few politicians who wanted the grief of being mayor of Bridgeport for the paltry salary of $52,000 a year, hence there was not a lot of strong opposition with which Ganim had to contend."[5] When Ganim became Bridgeport's fiftieth mayor, he was the youngest person to hold the office in city history.[5][10]

As mayor, Ganim began to clean up the city's East End, reducing the area's notorious crime rates, and reclaiming real estate from drug gangs.[11] Under Ganim, the city installed street lights and street signs and planted trees and flowers.[11] In 1992, the city removed a pile of construction debris (labeled "Mount Trashmore") that had been illegally dumped by a demolition business.[12]

In 1994, three years after becoming mayor, Ganim ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of Connecticut. Ganim withdrew from the race in July 1994, less than a week before the Connecticut Democratic convention, after lagging in the polls, and endorsed John B. Larson, the State Senate president pro tem and the front-runner for the party's nomination.[13][14][15]

In 1997, Ganim defeated Republican challenger Joan K. Magnuson by a huge margin.[16] In that election, Ganim's appearances on taxpayer-funded commercials "boosting his city's image" were criticized by his opponents, who believed that the commercials were tools for re-election.[17]

Under Ganim, the City of Bridgeport joined a number of U.S. cities (others included New Orleans, Miami, and Chicago) to file legal actions against the handgun industry, arguing that they were liable for product liability negligence in failing to use technology to make their products safer, leading to handgun violence.[18][19][20] Such suits were inspired by successful litigation against the tobacco industry.[18] The City of Bridgeport's suit was filed in Connecticut Superior Court in January 1999; it named Smith & Wesson, 11 other U.S. firearms manufacturers, three handgun trade associations, and a dozen gun dealers in southwestern Connecticut as defendants.[18] Ganim said that the city's action aimed at "creating law with litigation...That's the route that we're going because [the industry has] always very effectively, with big money, lobbied the legislature and kept laws from being passed."[18] The city sought $100 million in damages for the cost of human life lost and the public cost of treating shooting victims;[19] Ganim said that the city would agree to a settlement, "if the companies will agree to improve the design of their handguns to prevent their misuse."[18] The suit was unsuccessful: the court dismissed for lack of standing in December 1999,[21] and the dismissal was unanimously upheld by the state supreme court in 2001.[22][23]

In 1999, Ganim was one of three American mayors to receive the City Livability Program Award from the United States Conference of Mayors.[24] The award was conferred for Ganim's "Clean and Green program," which addressed urban decay and blight through a beautification campaign which saw the demolition of more than five buildings and the development of twelve new city parks.[24] A cornerstone of the city's redevelopment efforts was the construction of a new baseball park (The Ballpark at Harbor Yard) for a minor league baseball team, the building of a new arena (Webster Bank Arena), and the redevelopment of industrial land on the city's waterfront.[11][24][25] Ganim's term also saw the competition of demolition of Father Panik Village—a housing project notorious for drugs and violent crime; the final fifteen buildings were razed in 1993.[26]

Ganim also benefited personally, however, by collecting kickbacks from developers, eventually leading to his prosecution (see below).[11]

Ganim surrendered in September 2003 and served most of his sentence at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey.[32][33] He unsuccessfully petitioned for a transfer to FCI Otisville in New York, to be with his family.[34] In 2009, Ganim was transferred to the FCI McKean prison camp in Pennsylvania.[33] Ganim then served the last seven months of his sentence at a halfway house in Hartford.[35] Ganim's sentence was reduced by a year for participating in a drug-treatment program.[35]

On January 1, 2015, Ganim offered a public apology to the City of Bridgeport for his corruption scandal, saying: "I'm truly sorry."[11] The apology—as well as visits to churches in city's mainly African-American east side, a former stronghold for Ganim during his days as mayor—fueled speculation about a return to politics for Ganim.[11] In March 2015, Ganim moved back to Bridgeport from Easton, where he had been living.[42]

In May 2015, Ganim officially entered the race for mayor, filing paperwork to challenge incumbent Democrat Bill Finch as mayor of Bridgeport.[43] Ganim won the endorsement of the Bridgeport police union.[44] Ganim also won the key support of local clergy and the Democratic machine led by Democratic Town Committee chairman Mario Testa.[42][45]

In September 2015, Ganim won the Democratic primary, making "a big step toward completing an improbable political comeback."[6] Ganim defeated two primary opponents: Finch, the incumbent mayor, and University of Bridgeport vice president Mary–Jane Foster, co-founder of the Bridgeport Bluefish minor-league baseball team.[6][46] Ganim received 6,264 votes, Finch 5,859, and Foster 1,177.[47]

In the days after the primary election, Finch sought to run in the general election under the "Job Creation Party" ballot line, while Foster announced she would not seek to appear on the general-election ballot as a petitioning candidate.[2][48] However, Finch's campaign missed a filing deadline, and he dropped out of the race; Foster jumped back into the race, receiving Finch's endorsement.[2][48][49]

During his campaign, Ganim promised to reduce taxes, lower crime by adding more police officers, and lower unemployment, which is high in Bridgeport.[2] He managed to persuade Edward Adams, a former FBI agent who helped convict Ganim on corruption charges, to support his campaign.[2] However, Michael Wolf, the FBI special agent-in-charge of Connecticut during the Ganim investigation, fired back with a letter published in the Connecticut Post saying that Adams was not the lead investigator in the Ganim case, and writing that "a mayor who swindled a city he was entrusted to govern, should not be given the opportunity to do it again."[50] Wolf called Ganim the "poster boy" of corrupt Connecticut politicians, a group that included former Governor John G. Rowland, former state Treasurer Paul J. Silvester, and former Bridgeport state Senator Ernest Newton II.[50]

On November 3, 2015, Ganim won election as mayor by a wide margin, defeating Mary Jane Foster (a Democrat running as an unaffiliated candidate) and Republican nominee Enrique Torres, a city councilman.[2][6][51][52][53] Ganim's successful return to politics has been compared to Marion Barry Jr. of Washington and Vincent A. (Buddy) Cianci, Jr. of Providence, Rhode Island, other mayors who won re-election after criminal convictions.[2] The New York Times reported Ganim's election victory as "a stunning return to public office ... remarkable for its sheer audacity, coming after a widely publicized fall from grace."[2]

Ganim was sworn in on December 1, 2015.[1]

In 2017, Ganim filed paperwork creating an exploratory committee to run for governor of Connecticut in 2018. Ganim requested public campaign financing, which in Connecticut is available to qualified candidates. In April 2017, however, the Connecticut Elections Enforcement Commission denied his request due to a state law denying public funding to candidates convicted of "felonies related to public office."[54][55] Ganim challenged the denial in federal court on constitutional grounds, but the U.S. District Court dismissed his suit in November 2017.[55]

In his campaign against Ned Lamont for the nomination, Ganim unsuccessfully ran as "feisty, in-your-face campaign, which he tried to frame as a city-versus-suburban class struggle."[56] In the August 16, 2018, primary election, Ganim was defeated by a wide margin by Lamont, who received 172,088 votes (81.2%) to Ganim's 39,917 votes (18.8%).[57]

Ganim was reelected as mayor in 2019, securing a seventh term as mayor.

In February 2019, the FBI served a subpoena to Ganim's administration, which was obtained by the Connecticut Post. The subpoena revealed a federal grand jury in New Haven was investigating Ganim's administration for possible municipal corruption.[58] Ganim's administration spent more than $500,000 responding to the criminal probe into Bridgeport, included the fees for private lawyers for multiple government officials including Ganim; the investigation was similar in some respects to FBI's criminal investigation into Ganim's actions as mayor in 2003.[59][60] In September 2020, the city's Personnel Director and Chief of Police were indicted for wire fraud and making false statements. This was in connection with their conspiracy to rig the 2018 selection of Bridgeport's police chief. Ganim was not accused of any wrongdoing.[61]