Babylon taps retired Suffolk cop to lead new town department

The Town of Babylon is consolidating divisions to create a new public safety department and will hire a retired Suffolk County police chief to oversee it.

The town will pay former Suffolk County Chief of Detectives Gerard Gigante $130,000 to be the commissioner of the new department.

The department will be comprised of six divisions: public safety; emergency management; fire prevention; code enforcement; park rangers; and harbor patrol. Currently these divisions report to different department heads, said Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer. Code enforcement, for instance, is under the town attorney’s office, while public safety is under the parks department.

"I just noticed over the years that it lacked that coordination," Schaffer said. "It just made more sense to pull it all back together and have it operate under the leadership of one person."

Gigante, who retired in July after 36 years with the police department, was head of the First Precinct in West Babylon for five years and lives in the town.

Babylon had a public safety department created under Supervisor Anthony Noto in the 1980s. A scandal in the late 1990s involving a code enforcement commissioner collecting unauthorized overtime and falsifying time sheets, coupled with a $7 million budget deficit, led the town board and Schaffer, in his first tenure as supervisor, to lay off dozens of employees and dismantle the department.

Schaffer said the town has seen an uptick in complaints about squatters and drug dealing out of homes and expects a further surge when the state’s moratorium on evictions ends on Aug. 31.

"Recreating this public safety department and giving it a new leader with over 36 years of law enforcement experience is going to increase our ability to carry out what I view our main function is," Schaffer said. "He’s very familiar with not only all the personalities in the town, but what makes the town tick and how to prevent issues and how to resolve them."

The town in January entered into a contract for up to $50,000 with Gigante to review the town’s public safety division in light of nationwide police reform efforts. That deal dissolved after then-Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart read Newsday’s article on the contract and said a county ethics board opinion had not been obtained for the work, which she chalked up to "a lot of miscommunication."

The town then hired assistant town attorney Jorge Rosario for $40,000 to do the evaluation. Schaffer said that review is forthcoming.

Gigante said Schaffer talked him out of retirement.

"I think I bring a level of trust that he knows I’m going to put the department together right and I’m going to do the right thing," Gigante said. "I think it’s a good challenge for me and I think it’ll be good for the town, and it’ll be personally rewarding."

By Denise M. Bonilla

denise.bonilla@newsday.comdenisebonilla

Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.