Embattled McCandless police Chief David R. DiSanti Sr. can return to lead the police force after serving an unpaid suspension and agreeing to follow a corrective action plan developed by town council members.
Chief DiSanti was placed on paid leave in November pending an investigation after an officer complained about sexual harassment on the job.
“After considering the whole body of evidence on what was an extraordinarily thorough investigation, the majority of council agreed the best way forward was to develop a corrective action plan for the chief and suspend the chief without pay until that plan was put together for his reinstatement,” Councilman Bill Kirk said Tuesday.
Council did not set a length for the unpaid suspension, only that it will last until the corrective plan is created, Mr. Kirk said, which he expects will be done “expeditiously.”
Chief DiSanti will be required to comply with the corrective plan if he returns to the job. His attorney, Tim O’Brien, said Tuesday that the chief looks forward to returning to duty.
“To be clear, Chief Disanti's sole objective is to ensure that the McCandless Town Police Department is operated in accordance with the highest ethical and professional standards,” Mr. O’Brien said in a statement. “The chief expects to achieve that objective with the assistance of all interested parties, citizens, police officers and the powers to [sic] be.”
He added that Chief DiSanti is prohibited from commenting on the internal investigation, but that he will abide by the council’s decision.
After discussing the matter in a private session Monday, council members publicly voted 4-3 to bring the chief back, Mr. Kirk said.
Council members Steven Mertz, Carolyn Schweiger and Kimberly Zachary voted against the plan. Mr. Kirk voted in favor, along with members Greg Walkauskas, Joan Powers and William McKim.
Mr. Mertz said he voted against the measure in part because the corrective action plan hasn’t yet been written and in part because McCandless residents weren’t alerted that council would be taking up this issue Monday.
“We did not tell the people there was going to be any kind of decisions made on this,” he said. “We gave nobody a chance to speak.”
The council has not discussed in detail what sort of corrective actions it will require of the chief, Mr. Mertz said, and so it seems premature for Chief DiSanti to say he intends to abide by the council’s decision.
“In my mind, we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re suspending him without pay until we do,” Mr. Mertz said. “And we plan to write something he’d have to agree to before he came back. But we don’t know if that is going to take a day, a week, a month, a year. I can’t believe we announced a plan — without a plan.”
Mr. Mertz added he believes reinstating the chief will cause officers to leave the department. In December, the police department overwhelmingly voted that they had no confidence in Chief DiSanti — 24 police officers voted no confidence in the chief, one abstained and one voted in support of Chief DiSanti.
Mr. McKim declined to comment Tuesday; the other council members did not return requests for comment.
Mr. Kirk said he could not discuss any of the specific allegations against Chief DiSanti, nor could he say what changes the corrective plan will make in the police department because the changes directly relate to the investigation into the chief.
He said he did not consider the vote of no-confidence when discussing the chief’s situation with council Monday.
“That was a union vote, and it was outside the very thorough investigative process and body of evidence we had to deliberate on,” Mr. Kirk said. “We took outside comment and we tried to keep that to its proper perspective.”
He said the allegations against the chief did not rise to the level of criminal behavior and said the chief’s track record of positive leadership on the job influenced his decision to vote in favor of the chief’s return.
“Our police [department] has received a lot of accolades from the changes the chief has instituted...We want that good work to continue,” Mr. Kirk said.
Chief DiSanti’s return will follow the return of Lt. Jeffrey Basl, who earlier this month was suspended for 10 days in connection with sexual harassment allegations raised by Officer Melissa Delval, who also accused the chief. The allegations against the lieutenant included that he made lewd gestures and used crude language.
Shelly Bradbury: 412-263-1999, sbradbury@post-gazette.com or follow @ShellyBradbury on Twitter.
First Published: January 22, 2019, 5:48 p.m.
Updated: January 22, 2019, 9:11 p.m.
