Four months after the departure of Wilton police Chief Michael Lombardo, the town’s police commission will hold its first interview to fill the vacancy Monday, April 27. The candidate is acting Chief Robert Crosby, according to Police Commission Chair Chris Weldon.
This move follows several months of surveying community members on “what they think a police chief should be doing in Wilton in 2015,” Weldon said.
During January, February and March, Weldon said, he and fellow commissioners David Waters and Donald Sauvigné “reached out across the board speaking with students in high school, business owners, homeowners, real estate agents, organizations like the YMCA, and others.
“Even internally, we went back to the [department’s] rank and file and talked to them as well,” he said. “We wanted to get a flavor across all lines on where the police department should go.”
The process, he said, gave the commissioners a clear understanding of their next move, which was to give Crosby the opportunity to interview for the position, after which they will “make a determination whether Bob can carry the torch” or they need to expand the search.
This would not be the first time Wilton has promoted a police chief from within its own ranks. Lombardo was a captain in Wilton when he took the reins of the department in 2010 after the retirement of Edward Kulhawik, who had also risen through the ranks.