Memorial Day Could Bring New East Hampton Police Chief

East Hampton Town Manager Michael Maniscalco already has plans for this Memorial Day: He intends to march in the town's annual Memorial Day parade with the town's new police chief.

Maniscalco hopes to have the new chief on staff by then with the hiring process for a new police department leader well under way.

The town in February began advertising for a new police chief after Chief Matthew Riemondo accepted an early retirment offer from the town. So far, the town has gotten 52 applications for the job and the process for narrowing down the search, an ultimately hiring a new chief, is a complex one mandated by the state, Maniscalco said.

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The chief applicants must go through oral interviews before a special board of former police chiefs before a group of semi-finalists is recommended by the board to the town, Maniscalco said. That interview board is headed by former Wethersfield Police Chief T. William Knapp, who is also executive director of the state's Police Officer Standards and Training Council. 

Those semi-finalisits will then be interviewed by a local committee, made up of several Town Council members as well as members of the general public, Maniscalco said. The committee will recommend three finalists to the town manager, who will select one of them to be the new chief.

"It's a long process," Mansicalco said.

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