Aug
City of Portsmouth Interim Chief of Police William Corvello submitted his resignation on August 18th after a little over 3 months on the job. (Click to see Chief Corvello’s resignation letter to City Manager Kenneth Chandler). The resignation has an effective date of September 1st 2008. Chief Corvello was Portsmouth Police Departments best hope of getting all the numerous problems fixed and getting morale up in a demoralized Police Department that is fraught with numerous management problems for years.
Their has been much conjecture about Chief Corvello leaving short of his employment contract requirements. The Chief was on a Month-to-Month contract since starting his employment on May 7th, 2008 (Click here to see Chief William Corvello’s employment contract). If a retired Superintendent of State Police with Chief Corvello’s stature can not fix the problems or is not given the cooperation by City of Portsmouth Officials he needs to fix the Police Department then who can? Certainly not the current upper management of the Portsmouth Police Department. They have a sorted past, part of the current problems and lack of accountability can be directly attributed to the shenanigans of certain members of the current executive staff. Very few of the rank and file officers have any confidence in them. I have some personal experience with several of them and will be relating some incidents that will demonstrate that the current upper level executive staff is not fit to be a Chief of Police in Portsmouth or anywhere else.
I have had numerous contacts with Chief Corvello during these past months. I have only good things to say about him. He was fair, personable and reasonable. He cared about the people that worked for him and it was apparent that he wanted to fix the numerous problems that have plagued the Police Department for years. Unfortunately his hands were tied, he was micro-managed by the Office of the City Manager. As you can see in the resignation letter, he was “backdoored” by the City Attorney at least once (and I suspect that was one of many occasions).
He was not given the authority to accomplish the tasks neccessary to implement positive and required changes to fix a broken Police Department. I suspect Chief Corvello had to get everything pre-approved before he was allowed to do anything. Chief Corvello publicly speaks very highly of his association with Portsmouth City Manager Kenneth Chandler but if that was really the case would he be resigning? I think not !
A man of Chief Corvello’s stature and experience should have been allowed to make the necessary decisions on his own and implement them. If Chief Corvello can’t fix the problems with his vast resume who can?
Their are still a number of issues (moral, ethical & legal) that have been covered up over the years that are going to come out. Their has been illegal activity within the upper management of the Police Department. Some that people are aware, (i.e. Lt. Ali) some that hasn’t come to light yet. Their have been transgressions committed by Portsmouth Police management in the past that they have never been held accountable for. The saying “Do as I say not as I do” is a fitting phrase to describe many in Portsmouth Police leadership positions. Part of the problem is that they are supervisors but not leaders, they lack the discipline to follow their own policies. Certain staff members have been involved in illegal spending of department funds, had sex with subordinate female civilian employee’s in there office and other various incidents.
I know that if I was the Chief of Police trying to be fair, do the right thing and hold people accountable for their actions and was told “no you can’t” I’d resign too.
It’s extremely doubtful once Chief Corvello leaves that their will be any forward progress made in fixing the Portsmouth Police Department. He was the cream-of-the-crop, it is doubtful they are going to find anyone with his experience and caliber again. That’s a shame, given that they had a guy capable of pulling it off and the Portsmouth City government let him get away. You hired the guy to fix the problems, guess you should have let him do the job you hired him for.
Farewell Chief Corvello, we know you gave it your best shot ..
