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After a full year of not having a permanent chief, the Onalaska Police Department will get a new leader. Last Thursday night, the Police and Fire Commission made an offer to Dennis Weiner of New York contingent upon passing medical and background checks.

Assuming he passes all the checks, which could take a couple weeks, Weiner would fill the vacancy created when Randy Williams took medical leave and retirement on June 1, 2007. Former police captain Tim Hauser came out of retirement to serve as interim chief while the commission completed a search for a new chief.

As a self-described “born and bred Long Islander,” Weiner is currently the chief of police in village of Centre Island in Oyster Bay, N.Y., where he has been since 1995. From 1982 to 1995, Weiner was with the New York City Police Department, working his way up from police officer to supervising officer. As supervisor, he had 10 direct reports and 85 indirect reports.

Married with two school-aged children, Weiner said he wasn’t so much wanting to leave New York as he was looking for another law enforcement challenge. “I was drawn because of my professional interests in law enforcement,” he said. “I’m ready to take on a new challenge.

“Once I visited and saw the beautiful community it is, I thought it would be the right move. It looks like a great community for raising a family. And I was impressed with the police department,” he said. “They seem very focused and intent on best serving the community of Onalaska, which I was impressed with.”

Weiner, 47, has a history of integrating innovative technology into police operations, and he sees opportunities to continue that interest in Onalaska. “Technology doesn’t replace the officer on the street, but it does increase his effectiveness and efficiency,” he said.

As police chief, Weiner said he has “implemented a state of the art mobile records management system that included cellular and wireless system integration and real-time multi-jurisdictional data sharing.”

He also said he “transformed an under-funded and under-staffed department with inadequate resources, lacking training and with poor morale into a regionally recognized, benchmark setting operation.”

While he said he is going to take the lead from city leaders to see what their priorities are, Weiner said his top goals are to have strong community and media relations and to develop strong regional relationships with other area law enforcement agencies.

n NEW OFFICER: The Police and Fire Commission made a contingent offer of a police patrol officer position to Shawn Colgan. Colgan has been a police reserve sergeant with the Onalaska Police Department since 2004.

He also is a loss prevention leader for Shopko and a combat engineer with the U.S. Army National Guard’s 32nd Engineer Company.

The offer is contingent upon Colgan passing the physical and psychological tests and background checks.