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Lester Aradi has spent a year building confidence, earning respect. Now, he says, it's time for "dramatic changes.''
By CHRIS TISCH
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 17, 2002
LARGO -- A year ago this week, Lester Aradi took over a troubled Largo Police Department wounded by a public scandal and undercut by sagging morale.
Almost immediately, Aradi developed trust and respect among his officers. A cop's cop, they called him. A guy to rally around. A leader who would stand up for his officers.
But the former deputy chief of a small Chicago-area department has earned respect outside of the department as well.
Residents seem taken with him. In Aradi, they don't find an awkward, insiderish authoritarian burnt out with police work and complaining citizens. He's warm, he's friendly, he's approachable. He's interested in what they have to say.
City officials find him easygoing, affable and imaginative. They respect Aradi for not barging into the city demanding wholesale changes. Largely, he spent his first year observing.
But Aradi knows that, after a year, the honeymoon is over. He is going to ask city commissioners for some serious -- and expensive -- tools to make changes. And he is urging citizens to help him make the department better.
"I've sat back for a year. Now I'm going to roll up my sleeves," he said. "Be prepared for some dramatic changes in the organization."
It's a sunny Saturday morning at the Crossroads Family Restaurant on Belcher Road, and Lester Aradi, in uniform, sits at a table, across from a half-dozen people.
This is Coffee with the Chief, a program Aradi started soon after his arrival in which he goes to a Largo restaurant one Saturday morning a month to listen to residents' concerns.
Today, a business owner is quizzing him about juvenile crime and a police volunteer is chewing his ear about traffic. Aradi listens. He takes a few notes and offers to send some motorcycle officers out to a problem traffic area pointed out by one of the attendees. He is smooth and articulate.
But there is something else going on here.
Aradi nods when attendees say the department has a spotty police presence in the city. He shakes his head as he explains the problems with the department's sky-high turnover rate. He admits being embarrassed that his officers don't have computers in their police cars.
He urges those at breakfast to get involved in the city government, to attend meetings and out-shout those who Aradi says are a vocal minority with a heavy influence on city government. Aradi expects those people will resist his efforts out of fear taxes will rise.
"It's time to send a message that security in our community is essential," Aradi tells the people. "I can only bite my tongue so many times."
Later, Aradi says: "I'm not politicking, but I am telling them they need to get involved. You can't just let the few people in the community speak for you."
"I'm not trying to push my agenda. That's not the case here," he says. "But I am being confronted by concerned citizens saying, "What can you do to help us see more police officers on the street to get faster response?' And I'm telling them, here is our situation."
One of the changes Aradi wants is computers for the patrol cars. They will cost millions, though Aradi thinks less than $5-million. For a department with an $11.7-million budget, that's major money. Without computers, officers don't have quick access to information that could help them serve the public and protect themselves. They can't tell right away if officers have previously been to a certain address, for instance, or whether a man arrested on a misdemeanor theft charge has a history of violently struggling with police.
Technology is so important to Aradi that he unrolls a chilling prediction: "Lives will be lost if we don't get it."
Beyond computers, Aradi says the department is packed with good police officers, many of them young. But the city has struggled to hire and retain officers in recent years, and half its officers have less than five years of experience with the department, a figure Aradi calls unacceptable.
Over the past two years, 34 officers have voluntarily left the department. Another 12 dropped out of training and two were terminated. That's more than a third of the force gone in two years.
So why were officers leaving? And how can the department keep the ones it has? Aradi said it's not one thing but a collection of deficiencies.
The department phased out units like traffic and drug enforcement. Largo officers over the years have been asked to become generalists. They are asked to handle a shooting call one day, work through a code enforcement call the next, and try to make drug or traffic arrests here and there.
Aradi doesn't think it works. And officers, frankly, got bored. They become a bland jack of all trades, which is why some went to other agencies, said Officer Tracy Brown, the department's recruiter.
So Aradi has created a traffic unit. He's also forming a drug investigations unit. He has added a position specializing in mental health. He plans to crank up community policing initiatives.
Aradi also would like to shake up his command staff, including adding a third captain. He wants to be able to hold his commanders more accountable by slicing up their assignments.
But the changes will do no good without police officers, and Aradi is heavily influencing hiring.
Brown said Aradi meets with all applicants and has a positive impression on them.
"That's how I sell the agency, as a family," Brown said. "A place where the chief is going to know who you are, where you're not just a number. And that's how I get people to come here."
Not only does Aradi's presence influence hiring but it has boosted morale. It was sinking before his arrival, one reason officers left.
"I would say morale has improved greatly," said patrol Sgt. Mark Young. "He sets times where it's just him and the troops. He's up front, honest and direct."
The door to Aradi's second-floor office rarely swings shut. Employees have seen him in that office rifling through photographs of all his officers, memorizing their names and faces.
He's often downstairs where most of the officers work. He stops them, shakes their hands, asks about their family. He attends squad meetings. He sometimes comes in at 4 a.m. to meet with his midnight shift supervisors.
He vows to stick up for his officers if they make mistakes and admit them. He lets sergeants discipline officers for minor mistakes rather than dragging them through internal affairs for every little slip or blunder.
"One of the first things he said is he'll stand up and take the shots for us," Young says. "He's leading from the front. He's leading by example."
Clearwater police Chief Sid Klein, who has been in his office 21 years, says he also is impressed with Aradi. The two talk at least once per week.
Scandal socked the department before Aradi's arrival because of an investigation into allegations that officers had improper sexual relationships with teenagers in the Explorers program in the 1990s.
Chief Jerry Bloechle retired as police chief in October 2000, citing health problems and stress related to the Explorers inquiry.
The department embraced Aradi, an outsider, as someone to lead them to new places.
"I think everyone was saying let's move forward," he says. "All my wheels were greased."
Aradi immediately began a bend-over-backward policy of being open to the public and the media. He has posted statistics about internal affairs complaints, often the most tucked-away part of a department, in his front lobby.
"I care about the public image of this department. But I'm not going to hide the truth. We're going to show that we are a professional department."
Aradi's first annual review from City Manager Steve Stanton was glowing, with only a few criticisms. Stanton has said that his future as Largo city manager hinges on Aradi's success.
"He is everything he was billed to be," said Stanton.
Aradi says this is a crucial time for the department. With the economy in a tailspin, Aradi predicts crime will be on the upswing, stressing the agency.
He wants a full staff. He wants the computers. He wants a solid police department that isn't asked to do more with less.
"If he gets the support he needs from the citizens, from the commission and the officers, he can take this department a long way," says patrol Sgt. Brian Browne, who also is union representative. "And he's just about there."
Aradi has been heaped with praise since his arrival. Now that he plans to seek the changes he thinks the department needs, he realizes it may become easier to find people who don't have all nice things to say about him.
"I have a very clear vision of how to lead this organization," he says. "The only question is how much support will I get?"
-- Staff writer Michael Sandler contributed to this report. Chris Tisch can be reached at 445-4156.