Paul Bass Photo
James Lewis served notice that he’s leaving town after 19 months as New Haven’s top cop, whether or not a permanent replacement is immediately ready to take his place.
Lewis, who came to New Haven to help turn around a scandal-plagued department, confirmed Thursday afternoon that he has given a firm Feb. 28 departure date. He’s now terminating his downtown apartment lease and buying the plane tickets to go back home to Wisconsin.
Lewis agreed to extend his 18-month contract in order to help the city find his replacement.
That process has proceeded well, he said Wednesday. He said the city has identified a number of candidates, some of whom he has met with. (He didn’t cite the number.)
“I think it’s a great pack of candidates,” Lewis said.
He said that, as he had predicted, it proved easier to attract strong candidates this time than during the last search for a chief, because the department is now in stronger shape.
Click here to read about some of those improvements. Click here and here for a sampling of how Independent readers feel about the job Lewis has done here.
Lewis called it a “good possibility” that New Haven will offer the job to a finalist by the time he leaves. But he also said that even if the finalist accepts the job, it’ll probably take some time before he or she can start here. So New Haven will need an interim chief.
“One of the assistant chiefs can run [the department] like when I’m on vacation,” Lewis said. The decision of which assistant chief would take over won’t be up to him, he noted.
Before Lewis came here in July of 2008, Assistant Chief Stephanie Redding served as interim top cop.
“I’ve really enjoyed my 19 months here,” Lewis said.
Mayor John DeStefano Thursday afternoon said he agrees that it’s unlikely a permanent replacement will be ready to start March 1. He said doesn’t know yet who will serve in the interim.
“I’ll make that decision when I get closer to the 28th,” he said. “It’ll in fact be in part dependent on where we are in the hiring process. We are actively engaged in that process.”
The mayor said he hasn’t personally spoken to any of the candidates yet, but Lewis, police board President Rick Epstein, city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, and representatives of PERF (the outside agency helping with the search) all have.
Thanks, Chief.
You've done a great job here. Best of luck in your new endeavors.