Board interviews candidates for top cop slot

GUILDERLAND — Five candidates have been interviewed for police chief and there are three more to go.

The town board began interviews earlier this month and expects to finish the final three on April 28, said Supervisor Kenneth Runion.  Acting chief Carol Lawlor, who has been filling the post since former Chief James Murley left amid controversy about a year ago, was among those interviewed.  She and Lieutenant Curtis Cox, second in command of the roughly 30-member department, took the promotion-class Civil Service exam on March 8, the results of which aren’t expected for another couple of weeks. 

Others interviewed include a person currently serving as chief in another department, and a person from the initial list of three candidates given to the town by the Civil Service Department — the other two declined to be interviewed — and a third person who responded to advertising that the town posted, Runion said.

After the remaining three — one from Rensselaer County, one from Hicksville in Nassau County, and one from Wallkill in Orange County — have been interviewed, the board will likely invite two or three back for second interviews, to be conducted at the beginning of May, said Runion.

“I would hope we’ll be ready to make a decision by June,” he said of when the board might make its final selection.

“The last chief was there for 35 years,” said Councilman Warren Redlich, stressing the importance of the board’s choice.

The district attorney’s investigation of the allegations that prompted Murley to leave has shifted direction, said Heather Orth, spokesperson for the DA’s office.  She wouldn’t comment further on the public integrity unit’s investigation.  “It is ongoing,” she said.

“I’d be talking in a vacuum,” Murley said when asked about the investigation.  “I really don’t have any idea.”

He hasn’t been in touch with anyone at the police department, he said, so he knew nothing about an alleged threat between Senior Investigator John Tashjian and Patrolman David Romano, president of the Police Benevolent Association.

“It was the product of gossip and innuendo,” said Michael Ravalli, the lawyer for the police union.  Tashjian, the husband of Lawlor, and Romano have worked things out, Ravalli said.

“I would be violating the law if I were to discuss anything like this,” Cox said when asked about the incident.  “I can tell you that we have no complaint at this time.”

One section of the state’s Civil Rights Law says that the personnel records of police officers are confidential — a directive recently impressed upon the town in a letter dated Feb. 6 from Ravalli.

Runion cited the same section of law when he declined to comment.

“As far as I know, there hasn’t been anything reported… that would affect Deputy Chief Lawlor’s ability to become chief,” he said when asked if an incident involving her husband could affect Lawlor’s standing for the chief position.

“This has been a long time for both of us,” Lawlor said of her role as a supervisor in the Guilderland Police department, where Tashjian has worked for 25 years.  Tashjian has always reported to another supervisor, she said, a system that has worked well.

When asked if she thought the allegations might affect her prospects, she said, “I wouldn’t think so.”