The new Chief and Deputy Chiefs spent most of their time for the first three weeks going through the same PCPD training and certifications as every other officer joining the department.
With the rest of their time, this leadership team began working through the best way to structure the Plant City Police Department. “It requires us to have a macro understanding of the agency before we make any micro decisions,” said Deputy Chief Joseph Centanni. “It is imperative we understand every nuance of the police department and every operational function before we can set short-term, intermediate, and long term goals. We have to learn every single thing we can about this place, every single officer, the functions, the community, the government. The three of us are still learning a lot about each other both personally and professionally. It is going great, and we anticipate and expect great things going forward.”
Centanni is leading Administration and Support. “Deputy Chief Centanni has worked with three different law enforcement agencies,” said PCPD Chief , Richard Mills. “He worked his way up…he has experience as a chief of police. He took an agency that needed a little bit of help and really put it on the map. He has a vast amount of administrative experience, and with internal affairs. When it comes to policy and procedures, he is the expert.”
Justin Duralia is now overseeing Investigations and Patrol. “Deputy Chief Duralia started off at a local law enforcement agency with the Largo Police Department, and worked his way up,” Mills pointed out. “And he has been with the Drug Enforcement Administration, so his investigative skills are outstanding.”
“What I would like to do is draw on my investigative experience,” Duralia said. “I started my law enforcement career as a patrol officer, and after about three years in patrol, I went into investigations. When I transitioned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, I was heavily involved in complex investigations for the last 24 years.”
Chief Mills has worked in every division of the Tampa Police Department, and worked his way up through levels of management. “I started out in patrol,” Mills said. “Then I was a detective. Then I went to Special Ops.” Mills eventually oversaw 350 officers in the Special Operations division, which encompasses SWAT, the Bomb Team, Criminal Intelligence, and the Special Incident Management Unit. “We have diverse experience in where we have served, and how we came up,” he added. “I think that is going to transition to us building a phenomenal police department.”
Between the three of them, the new chief and deputy chiefs have over 90 years of law enforcement experience. “Hopefully, collectively, we can put that together,” commented Chief Mills. “If we find that we need to readjust and tweak things, then we are going to do that to make this agency the personification of excellence.”
This leadership team plans to add staff as soon as they can, and so they are taking a deep dive into the needs of the PCPD. They are in the process of gathering analytical statistics from across the U.S. Their analysis of large, medium, and small agencies will give them informed clarity about the optimal ratio of officers to residents. “There is a number there, and we have to figure out where we are at—if we are above, or below, or in line with law enforcement agencies of our size,” Mills said. “We need to look at growth. There is a way to project growth through statistics. We can analyze how many building permits and how many residents are expected to be here in five years, and in ten years, and project that. In order to bring on officers, it has to be justified. We just can’t arbitrarily tell the community, ‘Hey, we need 20 police officers,’ but not have a reason, or statistics, to back that up.”
Adding headcount is a big investment because salaries and benefits are an expense that doesn’t go away until the people you hired do. “On the behalf of the community, we want to make sure we are using those resources wisely,” Duralia said. “There are a lot of new neighborhoods, new houses, and apartment complexes going up. That is going to add to the population pretty quickly. We just don’t know how much. With population growth, there is going to come increased calls for service. So, that is another area we are going to look at when we make that recommendation.”
“There are also countless other variables that go into those measurements before those determinations are made,” Centanni added. “There are sets and subsets, and we are in the stages now of beginning to dig.”
“Our goal is to provide the officers with what they need to do the job, and serve our community the best way we can. That is our number one goal—to take care of the officers,” Chief Mills commented. “Our motto is going to be ‘Cops, Community, and Collaboration.’ That is what we want to go forward with. We want to focus on our cops and make sure that from the very beginning we get police officers that are the best of the best—then build this police department the best way we can, and give officers what they need, whether it be training, equipment, guidance, or leadership.”
Academic research has been able identify only one consistent factor across business fields that that yields customer satisfaction—it is employee satisfaction. In light of Cops, Community, and Collaboration: “If you take care of the cops, and they feel they are valued, they are automatically going to do a good job for you, and that goes out in the community,” Chief Mills said. “…To go out and build strong relationships with the community, get out, get some face time, and build transparency and trust. Then, once we have that, it feeds into collaboration, and we have to collaborate with everyone. We can’t do this alone. No law enforcement agency can do it alone. So we have to collaborate with the community, local businesses, churches, and schools.”
“Even though the three of us come from different backgrounds, that is a philosophy we all share,” Duralia commented.
“One of my philosophies is, leave it better than you found it,” Chief Mills said. “This is a very, very good, well-run agency that we inherited, and it is going to be tough to make it better. But we are damn sure going to try.”