Politics & Government

Phil Ross Became Chief Largely Through Mayor's Urging

The former police chief didn't recommend Ross, though he didn't outright tell council not to hire him. No other candidates were interviewed, but he mayor said council could have done so.

In the first half of 2009, in short order, Dormont would lose its police chief and another borough manager—its sixth in about a half-dozen years.

That February, Russ McKibben told council he was retiring as chief in March and, in early March, Warren Cecconi said he was leaving for a manager job closer to home.

Council formed a chief selection committee. Phil Ross, the department’s most senior sergeant, would serve as interim chief.

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About 30 people applied, from as far away as the Deep South and west coast.

Ross said he didn’t actually apply and provided no resume, though Council Vice President Laurie Malka, who was on the committee, said Ross’ resume was submitted.

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She and the other council members on the committee—current President Kim Lusardi and Drew Lehman—planned to winnow the applicant pool to about 10.

Ross had Mayor Tom Lloyd’s backing and that would prove enough.

The committee would end up only talking to Ross. And hired him, its members said, at Lloyd’s urging—a decision they’ve come to regret as Ross has since been and .

“The mayor just really pushed that we needed continuity and we really needed to appoint Phil,” Malka said.

“I thought we really needed to follow through on the interview process, that we owed it to community to interview these people before we made a final decision,” she said.

“Phil had been here almost 25 years,” Lloyd said. “It just seemed to me that we would be able to continue the department the way it had been.”

And, he said, council certainly had the opportunity to interview other candidates.

But there was enough on council who agreed with the mayor, Malka said. Council voted unanimously for him, which Malka explained was designed to show unity.

“I voted in favor with high hopes that this would be positive,” she said.

It’s proven to be anything but.

According to council members and borough manager Gino Rizza, Ross couldn’t perform the job and refused to accept that council was his boss, preferring instead to answer to Lloyd.

But Ross had given council an out, Lusardi, Malka and Lehman said.

“Phil told us if council was not happy with his performance as chief, he said he would step down. And then when we asked him, he said, ‘No, I’m going to make you do your job,’” Lusardi said.

“I did not say that,” Ross said Wednesday.

“If I would have said, ‘I’d rather go back,’ don’t you think that I’d have gone back?” he said.

Ross also lacked McKibben’s support.

“Some of the people who I would have recommended were leaving with me. And … the others involved frankly didn’t deserve it or were too young,” McKibben said.

“Being a very good police officer does not make you a very good police chief all the time. The skill sets are totally different,” McKibben said in a recent interview.

While McKibben said he did not outright tell council not to hire Ross, he acknowledged Ross was among that group he didn’t think deserved the spot.

“It wasn’t a slight at anyone in particular. I just thought that, at the time, it was a prudent move to look outside rather than just continue on the inside,” he said. “I thought that what you needed to be effective in that job wasn’t there or they just didn’t have the time there.”

“He’s entitled to his opinion,” Ross said of McKibben’s thoughts.

The job expectation was also different for Ross than him, McKibben said.

McKibben said he did very little police work when he was chief. His job, he said, was to administrate and be a go-between with the mayor, borough manager and council.

However, Lusardi, Malka and Lehman said they were clear with Ross about what they wanted before he took the job.

“We were very clear with Phil when he came in that we wanted him to do A, B, C, D and he didn’t do any of them,” Lehman said. “And that’s why we were able to make the decision to demote that we made.”

Council wanted officers to leave the station and patrol, to do a walking beat and overtime brought under control.           

“Russ did a great job … he had his guys out there,” Lusardi said. Under Phil, “We didn’t see the same patrolling.”

“This potentially could have been a better situation, but the fact is, we told (Ross) over and over again about getting people on the street in executive session and getting out there on patrol,” Lehman said. “I hear stories about (officers) sitting there and watching TV and it’s just unacceptable. They get paid a nice salary to work in our town and be out on patrol,” adding, however, that he was not speaking about every officer.

Ross said he wasn’t told until October 2010 that he had to put himself on the schedule.

Besides, he said, he had worked patrols.

“I did ride around. I did cover shifts. I saved the borough about $10,000 in overtime,” he said of the period from when he was hired in May 2009 to October 2010.

Council told him that October they wanted him on the schedule to curb overtime, he said. He balked, he said, but did put himself on to avoid discipline.

According to Ross, Rizza and council were the problem.

Council “didn’t like that I was protecting my police department and I from outside interference.”

However, he acknowledged the job wasn’t what he expected.

“It is a difficult job to man the police department and discipline people who were your friends,” he said.

There wasn’t a lot of information transfer from McKibben’s tenure, he said, explaining McKibben had showed him how to do the payroll and ran through the budget with him.

Ross lacked computer skills and grant-writing experience—necessary to help bring in money to help fund equipment such as vehicles, bulletproof vests and ammunition.

“Sergeants don’t do grant work,” he said. He’s written no grants while chief.

Lusardi said the borough recently was in peril of losing federal grant money obtained for two bulletproof vests before Ross was made chief because it hadn’t been spent. Ian McMeans, the assistant borough manager, discovered the money and had it not been used, he and Lusardi said, it likely would have been very difficult for the borough to obtain the grant in the future.

Council plans to buy about 10 bulletproof vests Tuesday for some $600 each; a newly applied for grant is expected to cover half the cost.

“I didn’t get a $50 an hour consultant to work with me, like the manager did, for almost a year or better,” Ross said.

Ross said he was working to learn the job, but that Rizza kept pushing for him to return to sergeant.

“That wasn’t my intention,” Ross said.

Lehman said he didn’t know that Ross did anything extra to learn the job.

“The help is there, the training is there, if you’re interested in getting it,” he said.

Lloyd maintains council meddles with the police department.

“I think the poor guy has gotten screwed by a bunch of people who don’t understand police work,” he said.

Lusardi said she thinks it's Ross’ pride that’s brought things to this point.

“He’s been very proud that he’s never had a mark on his record. He’s proud that he’s a Vietnam vet, as he rightfully should be. But, it’s not the person, it’s the position,” she said. “And everybody keeps saying, ‘Phil’s a great guy.’ He is. He’s a wonderful person. He can make you laugh. He’s great to have a beer with. I don’t understand why people can’t separate the two.”

Lehman also faults Lloyd to some extent.

“I think Tom is at a point now in his tenure where he does not care how anything is done. It’s his way or the highway,” he said. “He wants to be mayor until he dies. He’s not going to bow out gracefully. He’s going to run and run and run until he dies.”

Ross said other employees have also had problems with Rizza.

“We’re just doing our job,” he said. “There’s one person causing this problem. That’s the black and white of it.”

“Twenty-eight years, all of the sudden, I’m wrong and they’re right? I don’t think so. This is just not right,” he said.

Whether he ends up fired or demoted, he said, “I will take all the legal rights to get my position back.”


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