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AP Police Chief Search Narrows

By Douglas Carman | Highlands Today

Published: February 5, 2008

AVON PARK — The police chief search committee has thinned out its field of applicants, leaving 14 candidates out of the 61 who sent their resumes to then-city manager C.B. Shirey to seek Avon Park's top police job.
Highlands Today confirmed that the field includes at least four applicants from Highlands County and at least two from the Fort Meade area. City officials provided a list of the 14 candidates with titles for the last positions they held, but more details on the candidates were not released.
Interim City Manager Sarah Adelt said the committee originally trimmed the field to 15 candidates, but one of them removed himself from consideration after he was hired elsewhere.
Eight of the 14 candidates last held high-ranking positions in local police departments, with three of them being current or former police chiefs. Adelt said that all 14 entries on the "short list" have law enforcement experience.
Adelt said she's hoping the committee will narrow it to "no more than five candidates, hopefully three" within the next two weeks.
The council formed the committee last month to help Adelt choose a replacement for Frank Mercurio. Shirey forced the former police chief to resign in September months after an outburst between he and then-councilman Doug Eason during a July budget hearing.
Shirey moved to the newly formed airport manager position in January, leaving the council to look for a new city manager. According to the city's charter, only the city manager can hire a department head such as the police chief. Meanwhile, the acting police chief, Cmdr. Michael Rowan, filed to run for Highlands County's Sheriff, so the council created the search committee in part because its members thought the position would be open for too long if they waited until they hired a new city manager.
The applicants with local connections include:
u Robert Crews, the past president of Crews Groves, Inc. in Avon Park,
u J. Ruel Durrance, the former Lt. Assistant Deputy Chief of the now-defunct Fort Meade Police Department,
u John P. King, who retired as the resident agent in charge for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Sebring office,
u Cesar Pinzon, the Quartermaster of the V.F.W. 9853 in Avon Park,
u Rowan, Avon Park's interim police chief,
u Michael Woods, the Fort Meade Police Chief.