City Hall

[Unregistered]

VENICE — Venice Police Chief Thomas Mattmuller is considering hiring an outside consultant to guide his department through renewal of its accreditation with Commission for Florida Law Enforcement, which is due by November 2018.

The person most likely to fill that slot comes with a resume that includes overseeing a department that has achieved Excelsior status with the state — North Port Police Chief Kevin Vespia, who plans to retire from his current job in March.

“Kevin being very familiar with the process — and he’s retiring — it’s probably a perfect fit,” Mattmuller said while on break at a training conference with the Florida Police Chief’s Association in Tallahassee.

The Venice department has struggled to fill the accreditation coordinator slot since Lee Lyons left in late 2015, Mattmuller noted, and it had turned to an outside consultant in 2006, when it was trying to reestablish its accreditation with the state.

After Lyons left, Mattmuller — who became interim chief in December 2015 and was named chief in January 2016 — tried to find a successor.

He hired Dawn Rad**** from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who trained as an accreditation coordinator then went back to the FDLE when she was offered a job with a substantial pay raise.

Amy Turner, a communications manager within the department, trained for the task and did the job for a while, too, until she retired for medical reasons.

Venice Police Lt. Jessica Chappa has handled the duties in between, but Mattmuller said she’s more valuable elsewhere.

Meanwhile, no qualified outside applicant came forward for the position, which would pay from $45,000 to $65,000 annually.

“I cannot afford to have somebody come in and train them,” Mattmuller said. “I have to have somebody come in that’s familiar with accreditation.”

Mattmuller sought a consultant through the Florida Police Accreditation Coalition, fla-pac.org, with little success, until Vespia heard about the need. Vespia established a corporation, Vespia & Associates, LLC, on Sunbiz.org in August.

“Nothing is in stone here; everybody’s putting the cart before the horse,” Vespia said Monday. “The chief and I discussed it because I’m passionate about accreditation.”

Still, talk of those discussions prompted speculation — including an email query from North Port resident Stephanie Gibson of City Watch North Port to North Port City Manager Peter Lear and Mayor Linda Yates, who noted that she’d received tips that he was already working for Venice and was paid for his service.

Mattmuller and Vespia both deny that.

Mattmuller said the two had not even discussed a consulting contract and further noted that any contract would first have to be approved by Venice Mayor John Holic.

Mattmuller said his short-term goal is to hire a consultant for a year, to get through the accreditation process, then fill the position internally, with an eye toward becoming an Excelsior rated agency.

[Stephanie Gibson]

"Mattmuller sought a consultant through the Florida Police Accreditation Coalition, fla-pac.org, with little success, until Vespia heard about the need. Vespia established a corporation, Vespia & Associates, LLC, on Sunbiz.org in August.

“Nothing is in stone here; everybody’s putting the cart before the horse,” Vespia said Monday. “The chief and I discussed it because I’m passionate about accreditation.”

Still, talk of those discussions prompted speculation — including an email query from North Port resident Stephanie Gibson of City Watch North Port to North Port City Manager Peter Lear and Mayor Linda Yates, who noted that she’d received tips that he was already working for Venice and was paid for his service.

Mattmuller and Vespia both deny that.

Mattmuller said the two had not even discussed a consulting contract and further noted that any contract would first have to be approved by Venice Mayor John Holic."

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So vespia says they had discussed it but it isnt written in stone yet; Mattmuller said they had not even discussed it? Im thinking they discussed it plenty enough to get vespia to register a LLC that is needed for a consultant gig. I think they just forgot to discuss it with Lear and Holic.

Sounds like a Perfect Fit indeed.

[Unregistered]

Accreditation is easily the biggest scam in all of law enforcement. If you truly look at what it is you'd be astounded. A group of retirees forming a set of standards that are no better than what FDLE requires, just more tedious and ridiculous. The group that manages state accreditation (CALEA) is a for profit, non government organization. 90% of Florida police agencies are not accredited. (http://myweb.fsu.edu/tzuehlke/5427/files/police.pdf)

The NPPD gets 0 money from any state or federal entity for being accredited. We have created a position that makes more money than 50% of the officers here to do accreditation paperwork and relay for life projects. The time and work it takes to prepare officers for mock assessments and real assessments are not worth the "benefits" we receive from accreditation. Accreditations benefits are not well defined, although the governing ideology is that it sets a "higher standard towards furthering the professionalism of law enforcement".

Save the 60+ thousand a year in personnel costs and however much more on accreditation training / per diem/ travel. Hire a background investigator and get people hired here.

[Unregistered]

This tool has ruined NPPD and now he is on his way to ruin Venice PD. Have fun Venice.

[Unregistered]

Thanks to the work of another concerned citizen..

http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/Cor...0L070001260620

If you google the address, it's a PO Box at PostNet on Toledo and Price.

[Unregistered]

If you google the address, it's a PO Box at PostNet on Toledo and Price.

Reviewed the article and well it does kind of contradict itself. He is or he isn't, we discussed it or we didn't. Is it the hard to just tell the truth? The story is already out there, so why deny it. I guess that between Venice PD and NPPD the chiefs have not realized yet that our communities are no longer sixty plus seniors who trust there judgement and would never ask questions about there employment etc. You would think by now any employee of North Port or Venice would realize that we no longer take there word for anything we will hold them accountable. Times have changed, management and our political elite no longer have carte blanc. Accountability, Ethics and professionalism are what we demand and will no longer accept, deceit, lies and unprofessional and unethical conduct from our elected leaders and city employees.
How can the taxpayers of Venice really accept a person of our chiefs unethical and unprofessional behavior, lies and deceit to be employed by the VPD in any capacity. As previously stated in this forum, incestuous/ interbred good old boy behavior alive and well in North Port and Venice. The disease has spread...........

[Unregistered]

As shocking as it may be, the rule applies to all by the Chief. Email from Trish this morning statiing per Business Manager, Jen Ayres,no such form was completed.

From: Trish Lynch[mailto:tlynch@northportpd.com]
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 9:54 AM
To: City Watch North Port Fl <CityWatchNorthPortFL@outlook.com>;Records <Records@northportpd.com>
Cc: Patsy Adkins <padkins@cityofnorthport.com>; Linda Yates<lyates@cityofnorthport.com>; Peter Lear<plear@cityofnorthport.com>; Deborah Hope<dhope@cityofnorthport.com>
Subject: RE: Vespia Secondary Employment form

I have checked with our department’s Business managerregarding your request. She stated that no such form exists.


Attachment 269

Is this another outright lie !!!!!!. We do have off duty work requests and in a letter posted by Stephanie, the City Manager states he has not signed the request submitted by the Chief......
Stupid people lying for this man, when is enough, just enough ????????

[Stephanie Gibson]

Thank you Stephanie for keeping a vigil watch. It's nice to know that someone is watching considering that my multi-page memos attached to my annual reviews for the past two (2) years (which contained tons of red flags) went unnoticed and unconcerned by my entire chain of command. I, for one, wanted to thank you

Pam Schmidt

I have forwarded your evaluations to the CM and Commissioners with my reminder to the CM asking a response to my emails of 10/15. I had several responses from th Commissioners expressing concern. The CM has responded to the VPD email but nothing on the unfair and uneqaul practices that I have noticed and you actually documented in your evlauations.. so thank you.

Pam, I would love to hear more if you are up for a coffee or beer. I was especially surprised you were lifting your own training and even some travel costs? Maybe I misunderstood some of that. I would like to fully understand. Id also like to hear more about the Koval complaint that I was told directly in writing did not happen.

[153]

It doesn't matter what is on your evaluation or how you respond to it... good, bad, or indifferent. I was handed a letter on my resignation day that noted my clear incompetence and poor attitude- none of my evaluations noted these deficiencies including the one from this year. In fact, they all said I was exemplary for the most part and all were signed by a combination of the chief, my captain, your new captain, and the asst. chief as well. You don't think the cm saw my letter and agreed to it before it was put in front of me? I doubt he has time to care.

My captain told me I was an exceptional officer despite what the chief said and my only problem was my poor attitude toward all-around ignorance... because we all love ignorance in our government, right? He also mentioned that evaluations don't really mean anything anyway and no mind is given to them except that they are required by city rules and regs. He just wanted me to stop questioning supervisors when they make mistakes...that would solve most of my problems. Before that though he made a formal complaint against me for hurting his feelings.

In fact, I once had a problem with a Lt. of mine and the chief told me that people are threatened and intimidated by those who are smarter than they are. This may have been around the time he gave me and my recruit an illegal order to make atv riders vacate private property at the civic hole in violation of their civil rights all because some former commissioner didn't like atv's out east. People say lots of things they might not mean though, right?

Your newest captain routinely mentioned to his subordinates how ignorant he thought many of the 2nd floor decisions were and sometimes called their creators out by name... but he also said he would often leave his office with a folder in his hand just to make it look like he was busy. After lying to me about official business last year, my sgt's told me it would be better if I just left it alone... how worth it could it be to lodge complaints after all? Wouldn't want to have a bad attitude, right?

Former captain turned inspector is no better. He used to complain about the chief's inexperience and poor decisions on a fairly regular basis whenever we happened to speak off tape.. including the one where he got duped into taking a civilian job to make way for his predecessor and how badly he got screwed. Many of our most recent conversations were all recorded though so maybe he didn't mean all those other bad things.

The asst. chief has only been here a short while so he may not be able to own much of this... I mean at his old job he also spoke of the chief's inexperience and how poorly the dept. was run. I might have heard some of it- I worked there before I hurt the feelings of some poor defenseless police cadets. Got some pretty good evaluations from the former director if I recall. I should mention though that when I approached him last year about an incident that I was involved with, he told me he knew nothing about it but it made him uncomfortable speaking with me about it because it might have disciplinary repercussions for me. That was all well and good until his captain later told me the asst. chief was actually the one who made the complaint to the pd because it involved his son. That didn't get mentioned in the IA though (Officer Bill of Rights). My sgt's told me to let that one go, too. After all, he's the asst. chief... and I needed to have a better attitude.

I left the NPPD because I was told to. I left as quietly as I could with every intention of moving on with my life. Had the aforementioned people not wronged so many other good people since me, I would not have written here... but they did, so I did. It's no habit nor will it become one.

There are many fine men and women who work hard every day to keep your city safe. I worked with nearly all of them in some way, shape, or form over my 14 years there. Sometimes people don't understand how that job is done and that in order to be effective, the rules your admin has used to purge many of us from employment must be bent a little. Although, I always filled out an off-duty work permit, no matter who thought my side work was a conflict of interest. Those are the rules after all.

Nobody offered me an exit interview when I left so here you go. Now some people can feel vindicated that I actually DID post something here like they always accused me of.

[Unregistered]

VENICE — Venice Police Chief Thomas Mattmuller is considering hiring an outside consultant to guide his department through renewal of its accreditation with Commission for Florida Law Enforcement, which is due by November 2018.

The person most likely to fill that slot comes with a resume that includes overseeing a department that has achieved Excelsior status with the state — North Port Police Chief Kevin Vespia, who plans to retire from his current job in March.

“Kevin being very familiar with the process — and he’s retiring — it’s probably a perfect fit,” Mattmuller said while on break at a training conference with the Florida Police Chief’s Association in Tallahassee.

The Venice department has struggled to fill the accreditation coordinator slot since Lee Lyons left in late 2015, Mattmuller noted, and it had turned to an outside consultant in 2006, when it was trying to reestablish its accreditation with the state.

After Lyons left, Mattmuller — who became interim chief in December 2015 and was named chief in January 2016 — tried to find a successor.

He hired Dawn Rad**** from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who trained as an accreditation coordinator then went back to the FDLE when she was offered a job with a substantial pay raise.

Amy Turner, a communications manager within the department, trained for the task and did the job for a while, too, until she retired for medical reasons.

Venice Police Lt. Jessica Chappa has handled the duties in between, but Mattmuller said she’s more valuable elsewhere.

Meanwhile, no qualified outside applicant came forward for the position, which would pay from $45,000 to $65,000 annually.

“I cannot afford to have somebody come in and train them,” Mattmuller said. “I have to have somebody come in that’s familiar with accreditation.”

Mattmuller sought a consultant through the Florida Police Accreditation Coalition, fla-pac.org, with little success, until Vespia heard about the need. Vespia established a corporation, Vespia & Associates, LLC, on Sunbiz.org in August.

“Nothing is in stone here; everybody’s putting the cart before the horse,” Vespia said Monday. “The chief and I discussed it because I’m passionate about accreditation.”

Still, talk of those discussions prompted speculation — including an email query from North Port resident Stephanie Gibson of City Watch North Port to North Port City Manager Peter Lear and Mayor Linda Yates, who noted that she’d received tips that he was already working for Venice and was paid for his service.

Mattmuller and Vespia both deny that.

Mattmuller said the two had not even discussed a consulting contract and further noted that any contract would first have to be approved by Venice Mayor John Holic.

Mattmuller said his short-term goal is to hire a consultant for a year, to get through the accreditation process, then fill the position internally, with an eye toward becoming an Excelsior rated agency.

KV gonna Make VPD Great Again!