It turns out the city of North Port won’t be getting a new police chief immediately after Kevin Vespia retires, after all. After an open house last Monday that saw the four finalists meet with city residents and interview with city officials, City Manager Peter Lear Tuesday said he has rejected all four finalists and is opening the position up to a new nationwide search. Lear told ABC-7 while all four were good candidates, “the community deserves better than a good candidate…For a variety of reasons, none of the candidates met the standard that I feel our community deserves.” He says the new search could take as long as six months to complete.
