HAZLETON -- Hazleton's new police chief is interim, part-time, and will soon be on the job. He's also serving as the full-time public safety director of a larger city in New Jersey.
Jerry Speziale is able to be part-time chief in Hazleton, and full-time public safety director of Paterson, New Jersey, at the same time.
He's taking saved up personal, vacation, and sick time to implement his plans to make Hazleton a safer city.
"There's a challenge here," Speziale said.
Speziale loves a challenge. He's been a New York City cop, a federal drug enforcement agent, and right now, he's the director of public safety in Paterson, New Jersey.
He believes crime in Hazleton, and the perception that it's a dangerous city, can be turned around.
"One to two percent of your population is committing 99 percent of the crimes here in Hazleton. So you identify that one to two percent, and you do a focused deterrent," he explained.
'He's a very, very qualified, qualified guy," said Hazleton Mayor-elect Jeff Cusat.
Cusat hopes to eventually remove interim from the chief's title and make it a full-time job, but he has to find money in a tight city budget.
The mayor-elect's plan is simple: he wants people who drive too fast, and park too long, to foot the bill.
Cusat doesn't know how long it may take for the city to have enough money for a full-time police chief. In the meantime, Interim Chief Speziale will start putting his own plans into action.
"You can't fool yourself and think you're going to arrest your way out of problems," Speziale said.
He believes in technology that helps focus what the next crimes will be and where they will happen in Hazleton.
The interim chief says it is better than complaining about a lack of manpower to fight a flood of heroin.
"And we're telling you we don't have enough cops to police it. So what are we doing? And we're telling you we're on 80 and 81. You know what we might as well do? We might as well pick you up and drive you here."
Cusat hopes he can raise enough money in the next few months to make the chief's position full-time instead of part-time.
If that happens, he'd like to see Jerry Speziale apply for the job.
Speziale's grandfather lived in the city and Speziale applied for the chief's job in Hazleton when it was open in 2012.