Neiswanger, a 25-year veteran, impressed the mayor with his vision for police and the community.
James M. Neiswanger, of South Windsor, has been named Holyoke's new police chief. He is a captain with the Manchester, Conn. Police Department.HOLYOKE – James M. Neiswanger, the city’s prospective new police chief, will meet the public and press Friday and said he expects smooth negotiations on a contract to begin leading the Police Department.
Neiswanger, 48, is a captain and 25-year veteran of the Manchester, Conn. Police Department.
“I want to go up there and meet the mayor and everyone, get to the know the officers in the department and people in the community. I’m going to have to see the lay of the land,” Neiswanger said.
Contract negotiations will go quickly, he said.
“I don’t foresee any problems,” Neiswanger said.
The job was advertised with a salary range of $120,000 to $135,000.
Neiswanger would be replacing former Chief Anthony R. Scott, who retired April 30 after having been the chief since 2001. His annual salary was $133, 164.
Mayor Elaine A. Pluta made the surprise announcement Thursday that she had chosen Neiswanger, who was one of two finalists culled from an initial field of 39 candidates.
Pluta had said she would spend the weekend deciding and announce her choice for chief Monday between Neiswanger and Pedro J. Perez, 58, of Albany, N.Y., a retired, 29-year veteran official of the New York State Police.
Instead, Pluta said, her review of information that included the finalists’ performances in a role-playing evaluation Saturday persuaded her to choose Neiswanger.
Pluta said she was unable to release specifics from the evaluation, held at Holyoke Community College, because candidates were assured it would be confidential.
“But it was just very obvious from the report and the results of the assessment center that Mr. Neiswanger was the better candidate,” Pluta said.
One step that impressed her was a 2.5-page vision of the Police Department’s future Neiswanger wrote as part of the assessment center, she said.
“It was great, his plan, his organization, his vision for the department in the community,” she said.
By late Wednesday, she said, it became clear her choice was Neiswanger. She called Perez, who told her he might have another job offer, she said.
“I had already made my decision,” she said.
Perez hasn’t returned calls this week seeking comment.
Neiswanger, of South Windsor, Conn., said he was looking forward to today and to being chief here.
He and his wife Carla, a paraprofessional in the South Windsor schools, have three daughters, two of whom are in college and one in high school, he said.
The city charter requires that the police chief be a city resident. Neiswanger said he would put his home on the market and was unsure when he would move here.
In some ways, Neiswanger will be taking on a public relation challenge. Scott was very popular in parts of the city.
Scott established a presence in the media and aimed a zero-tolerance crack-down at bad guys while ridiculing what he called judge’ light-sentence coddling of criminals and having his friend and world-famous comedian Bill Cosby join him at events.
In Manchester, Neiswanger is known as a familiar and helpful officer in the community. He’s at concerts in the park and events such as July 4th celebrations, said Cheri A Pelletier, a member of the city’s board of directors, which she likened to a city council.
“I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like him or had an issue with him,” Pelletier said.
Neiswanger has experience managing the police budget and as a grant writer, as well as supervising the 126-officer department, Manchester Mayor Louis A. Spadaccini said.
“(Holyoke would) be getting an exemplary, high-professional invididual who has an exemplary record of service,” Spadaccini said.
An issue facing Perez was that he retired under a cloud in March 2010. The New York Times reported that Perez authorized the commander of then-Gov. David A. Paterson’s security detail several months earlier to contact a woman who had accused an aide to Paterson of domestic assault.
The aide, David W. Johnson, later pleaded guilty to harassing the woman, The New York Times reported. The scandal was one reason Paterson ended his campaign for governor in 2010.
At the time, Perez said his retirement was not a reaction to his actions in the case, which he called “honest and rightly motivated.”
When reached June 18, Perez told The Republican and MassLive.com, “It was thoroughly investigated by the Attorney General’s Office and the state police were cleared. That’s all I have to say about that.”
In a 57-page report on the case in July 2010 by Judith S. Kaye, the former chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, Perez said he authorized the call to the victim because he had only a brief third-hand description of what had happened.
Perez also said in the report that he wanted the security detail commander to assess whether the woman who made the assault accusation needed help. He testified he also wanted to know if the incident was a security threat to the governor.
Dale M. Volker, of Depew, N.Y., a former New York state senator, said that he has known Perez for 30 years and that he would have been an excellent chief here.
“He was a super guy, Pedro Perez, one of the finest state police officers I ever met, really top-flight guy,” said Volker, a lawyer with a practice in Lancaster.
“He went right up through the ranks, well-respected by his men, knowledgeable, he had great leadership abilities.
“He’s Hispanic, but he’s able to get along with anybody. I never heard anybody say anything uncomplimentary about him, except maybe a few guys he disciplined,” Volker said.