A Times Editorial

Largo leaders should work to rebuild trust

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 8, 2000

Twice in three years, the chief of the Largo Police Department has stepped down as scandal rocked the department.

In July 1997 it was Rick Kistner who was forced to resign amid allegations that he interfered in a criminal case involving his 15-year-old son. Kistner, who had been chief four years, was not charged with a crime, but Largo City Manager Steve Stanton demanded his resignation. "Once you breach the veil of public trust, you create a situation where you are no longer effective," Stanton said then.

This time it was the man who took over leadership of the department from Kistner, former Deputy Chief Jerry Bloechle, who abruptly announced his retirement Tuesday. Apparently, no one forced Bloechle, a 20-year veteran of the department, to step aside, though certainly he had "breached the veil of public trust."

Bloechle failed to properly investigate rumors that officers in his department had sex with members of a youth Explorer post associated with the Police Department. Even after a police officer who killed himself in 1998 left warnings of the illicit relationships in his suicide note, Bloechle still did not launch a thorough investigation.

Only after the media began asking questions this year was an investigation done, and it found that three officers had sex with police Explorers. Then Bloechle lowered the boom -- on the department's public information officer, Mac Williams. Williams, who was not even with the department when the Explorer shenanigans were going on, said Bloechle forced him to resign because he didn't like the way Williams handled the media during the investigation.

Bloechle finally did the right thing when he decided to retire, thereby freeing his department and the city administration of the burden of explaining his poor judgment.

Actually, there was a third situation in a Largo public safety department in the last three years that raised questions about quality of leadership and possible breach of public trust.

In January 1997, Dan Fries, the city's fire chief, was fired by Stanton. Stanton said he had problems with Fries' management decisions, including what Stanton called his flawed handling of a fire inspector's $1 purchase of a used refrigerator from a store he had just inspected. That situation raised lots of eyebrows and later led to a two-month investigation by prosecutors, who eventually ruled it a case of poor judgment rather than criminal intent.

Largo city commissioners, reflecting on this history, should be alarmed. Three embarrassing cases in three years -- that's not bad luck, that's a trend.

The buck stops with the City Commission. Commissioners must make it clear to city employees and the public that they insist on high ethical standards in all city departments and that suspected violators will be investigated and, if found guilty, promptly and properly punished.

Commissioners also should demand that Stanton provide better oversight of the departments and act early and quickly to set things right when there is evidence of wrongdoing.

And commissioners should provide strong leadership in the search for a new police chief. The Police Department needs a good airing out to determine how something as shameful as sex between officers and youth Explorers could have been swept under the rug for so long. It needs capable interim leadership, preferably from outside the department. And then it needs a professional leader chosen through a national search to set it on the right path and protect the public's interests.

If city commissioners don't do this right, residents can be excused for wondering if the City Commission, too, has "breached the veil of public trust."

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