City board member questions chief search

Resident says he prefers to promote Paresi's replacement from within

At a North Las Vegas City Council meeting on Dec. 5, Dick Sadler addressed the council during the open forum portion of the meeting to question the wisdom of conducting a national search to find a new police chief rather than promote an officer from within.

Former Police Chief Mark Paresi was placed on paid leave by City Manager Gregory Rose on Oct. 29. The city would not divulge the reason for Paresi's dismissal, and since that time Deputy Police Chief Joe Chronister has been the acting police chief.

Sadler, who sits on the city's civil service board, began naming members of the police force whom he felt were qualified for the position, including Chronister and Assistant Chief Joe Forti.

Mayor Michael Montandon interrupted Sadler to ask: "Is there a question here? We're aware of this."

Montandon went on to defend a national search for a new police chief on the grounds that it will ensure that the next chief is the most qualified applicant -- even if that person is promoted from within.

"If we end up hiring from within, the credibility they will have from being qualified against that database will be incredible," Montandon said.

Mayor Pro Tem William Robinson spoke out against hiring from the outside.

"I'm sort of old-fashioned, and that's how it is," Robinson said.

Sadler said he had talked to patrol officers who wanted to see someone promoted from their own police department.

Rose assured Sadler that he would seek the input of a number of people on the qualities they thought he should look for in a police officer. Rose said he would talk to police officers and business leaders, as well as members of the black and Hispanic communities in North Las Vegas. He would not say how he would go about this, but he did say, "What I've committed to is that the process will involve broad input."

Toward the end of the discussion, Montandon softened his words to Sadler, and said he preferred challenges from constituents to apathy.

Sadler said later in an interview that he was pursuing the issue because of high turnover and low morale he saw in the police force, not as a member of the civil service board, which oversees city employee policy, but as a concerned citizen.

In another interview, Rose said he had retained a firm, Bob Murray and Associates, to conduct the nationwide search for a new police chief and that the search had begun. He said he believed that the cost of the search would remain under $25,000.

Terrence McAllister, president of the North Las Vegas Police Officers Association, attended the meeting with Vice President Michael Yarter, but neither spoke. In an interview the following day, McAllister made his position clear.

"No, he doesn't have our support as far as going outside at all," McAllister said.

He also said he had told Rose and the council so several times.

"What that says to people in our organization is that none of us are qualified or ever will be qualified," he said.

McAllister said the police department spends thousands of dollars training officers and characterized the city's decision to look beyond the police department as a slap in the face.

He said it would take some time for anyone from outside of North Las Vegas to get to know the community the way any qualified officer now on the force does.

McAllister said it was hard to tell how it would affect the police force to get a new chief from outside the city but pointed out that Paresi was an external hire from Portland, Ore.

He said the force initially welcomed its new leader but cooled to him before long.

"You can only do that until you get burned. I think, over time, some people got burned," he said.

Rose said Paresi still was on the city payroll.