Guardians in major quarrel

April 8, 1996

While One Police Plaza seethes with the resignations of top officials, it's mayhem as usual for the Guardians Association of Black Officers.

Their latest attack is against its newly elected president, Eric Sanders, who's been suspended by the Guardians' board for 15 counts of misconduct, including the apparently egregious transgression of improperly altering the group's newsletter logo.

Elected just three months ago, Sanders had attempted to suspend First Vice President Terrance Wansley and Treasurer Jacqueline Parris, charging they'd written checks without his signature. Sanders also charged them and board members Kim Jackson, Wade Williams and Karen Jones with refusing to turn over minutes and financial records of the Guardian subsidiary SNAIDRAUG (Guardians spelled backwards), which had purchased the group's Brooklyn clubhouse that was sold last year for $150,000. Sanders also says they refused to turn over records from two other subsidiaries: the Guardian Foundation, set up in 1974 for legal defense and scholarship funds, and Guardian Affiliates. Of the latter, Sanders says, "I have no idea what they do because the board won't show me the books."

"Board members are required by law to show me the books and the minutes," he says. "The Guardians Association itself hasn't kept minutes of its meetings for the last couple of years and legally, you have to."

Sanders says he could sue, spending members' money. "Or," he says, "the membership can rise up and ask the board the followng question: Why do you refuse to turn over the books?

"How much money is involved, I don't know. But clearly the old regime is allied with the board because these improprieties go way back."

Sanders, who said last month he'd resign after the board suspended him, now is having second thoughts because of what he terms "the overwhelming response of members."

His rival Wansley has told top department officials he's taken over as acting president and last week told Newsday, "Things are better than ever. The membership's coming together."

Showdown time comes at the next Guardians meeting tomorrow night.

Henry and Bill. If Mayor Rudolph Giuliani bridled before when William Bratton upstaged him, he'd best avoid the Police Foundation's 25th anniversary breakfast at the Regency tomorrow. Featured guest is Dr. Henry Kissinger, lured to the $2,500-a-table event by Giuliani's nemesis.

Somewhere along Bratton's high-flying trail, (perhaps on millionaire Henry Kravis' jet), he met Kissinger. "Apparently they took to each other," says Police Foundation executive director Pam Delaney.

"The Foundation is always looking for stars as featured guests to make public service - (translated: fundraising) - announcements," Delaney explained. "He [Kissinger] offered to do whatever it took to help. And Bratton orchestrated it."

Sleepless at City Hall. While some in the NYPD may feel Mayor Giuliani is nutty, Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari attributes what he terms the mayor's "testiness" to something else: a lack of sleep. "He only gets a few hours of sleep at night," says Molinari. "He works around the clock. Frankly, I don't know how he does it."

The Ghostwriter? Someone has finally been located to write the memoirs of "the most important law-enforcement figure of our generation and perhaps the 20th century," as his lawyer/agent Ed Hayes described our departing commissioner. "He's a fabulous writer," says Hayes.

So who is he?

"Sorry, I can't tell you who," Hayes says.

Still, The Jackster. So serious was outgoing Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple about his television "Perp Channel" that he had turned to the city's blue-chip police organization, the Police Foundation, for help. Maple's dream is to host a 24-hour TV channel devoted to crime, covering arrests and arraignments and showing the faces of every perp citywide so viewers watching might say something like, "Hey, he also robbed my sister."

Unlike Bratton's other friends who've made careers of schnorring contracts with agencies with which Bratton's been affilated, Maple didn't have his hand out. "He wanted to get a television station interested," says the Foundation's director, Delaney. "He didn't want any money. He just thought it was a great idea."

Good-bye, Tom. Tom Kelly was sworn as Deputy Commissioner for Public Information in a private cermoney a year ago. He left One Police Plaza just as quietly last week, with no announcement of his departure, no formal good-byes to the reporters who'd covered him and no indication about his next stop.