Former City Manager Ford Files Lawsuit Against City
By Connect-Bridgeport Staff on May 02, 2025
According to WDTV, former City Manager Pat Ford has filed a lawsuit against the City of Bridgeport after being terminated in early April after just a little over five months in his role.
In the lawsuit, Ford says after making a “good faith report of wrongdoing and/or waste,” he was terminated in an attempt by the city to “hide acts of wrongdoing and waste from public disclosure.”
Ford says from nearly his first day on the job, he was told by multiple employees, and eventually by Mayor Andy Lang himself, that the city needed to purchase property for a new public works building from Lang. He was also told that he needed to “figure out how this could happen without causing a public relations headache.”
Due to the tension caused by the multiple requests, Ford says in January, he began restructuring the city’s procurement process “so that more than three individuals had oversight of the city’s procurement and purchasing process.”
The lawsuit also states that Councilman Clayton Rice asked Ford on multiple occasions to approve payments/reimbursements for a private citizen for car parts/damages, which were not caused by the city.
After a personnel issue arose within the city, Ford said he followed the city’s procedures and hired an external, third-party law firm to conduct an investigation, all of which was approved by Lang and the city in open meetings.
Ford says that in early March, Lang began to question the purpose of the investigation and said after an interview with the law firm, he did not want the report/results to be publicly circulated by the city.
In late March, the lawsuit says Lang and the City Council were all advised, in writing, that substantial issues of public wrongdoing and waste were uncovered during Mr. Ford’s brief tenure at the city, to which the city responded by saying the investigation must be stopped.
Click HERE for the rest of the story that includes a link to the full lawsuit.
