Nunez
promotion
confirmed
By CARL E. HARTDEGEN
Staff Writer
WESTFIELD – A contentious issue facing the city’s Police Commission came to a speedy conclusion last night when the commission’s chairman, Karl Hupfer, announced that police Lt. Lawrence P. Valliere had sent a letter to the commission announcing that he was withdrawing his name from consideration for promotion to captain’s rank.
Valliere had appealed to the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission when he was bypassed in 2010 for a newly created captain’s position in the city’s police department despite being first on the civil service list by virtue of a one point advantage on the civil service test for the position.
In August, 2011, the Civil Service Commission vacated the appointment of Westfield Police Capt. Hipolito Nunez and ruled that “The Police Commission was not reasonably justified in bypassing the Appellant (Valliere) based on Nunez’s seniority, education or his bilingual skills” as those elements were not cited as pre-established criteria for promotion.
To remedy the Police Commission’s errors, the Civil Service Commission ruled Nunez’s promotion to be temporary and ordered a new review process for the position mandating that “the Police Commission shall use the services of an independent, outside consultant” to interview the eligible candidates in order to “provide all candidates with a fair opportunity for consideration.”
A panel led by retired Longmeadow Police Chief Richard Marchese and comprised of retired police chiefs from outside the immediate area was chosen and reported their findings to the Westfield commission at their Jan. 17 meeting.
A special meeting of the police commission was scheduled for Jan. 30 to reconsider the promotion issue but the meeting became irrelevant on Jan. 27 when Hufpfer received Valliere’s letter.
In his letter, Valliere said that he had brought the appeal in order to ensure that the proper procedures for promotion were followed and said that he felt vindicated that the Civil Service Commission had required revisions in the Westfield commission’s method of selecting officers for promotion. He said that future candidates for promotion will benefit by the intervention of the Civil Service Commission.
Commissioner Felix Otero, after a unanimous vote of the commissioners to accept Valliere’s letter, stated for the record that the review board found “what the commission already knew”, that Nunez was the most qualified applicant for the promotion.
The commission’s unanimous vote to re-affirm the promotion of Nunez, effective immediately, drew a round of applause from the audience which was mostly comprised of his relatives and police officers.
