Bridgeport Mayor-Elect Joe Ganim Wants To Speed Up Police Hiring

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (CBSNewYork) -- Bridgeport Mayor-elect Joe Ganim is making police hiring a priority as he gets ready to take office.

With police working another murder case involving a 22-year-old in the city, the incoming mayor faced the media Friday, WCBS 880's Paul Murnane reported.

Ganim, 56, is looking to speed up the police hiring process, but he's offering few details on plans to address street violence, Murnane reported.

"We will have, my view anyway, a much more effective response to what's going on as far as shootings in the city now and we will try different things," Ganim said. "We will be more visible."

Ganim is assembling a panel to examine property taxes and he had a phone conversation of a few minutes with the governor, who withheld political support.

Ganim described his talk with Gov. Dan Malloy as a brief but important conversation, ahead of the transition on Dec. 1.

Ganim declared victory in his new bid for mayor of Bridgeport on Tuesday, five years after he was released from prison for corruption.

Ganim served as mayor from 1991 to 2003 before being convicted of 16 charges, including bribery, racketeering and extortion.

When asked about his seven years in prison, Ganim said you build trust on speaking to the city's future, and addressing the tax, public safety and other concerns of more than 11,000 voters who supported him.

"I think if we do that we're gonna look back at some point in the next three, six, 12 months and say... 'it was like push starting a car, but once they got it going, they got Bridgeport going again,'" Ganim said.