LPD division chief wants Grand Junction’s top cop job

Division Chief John Camper

LAKEWOOD – The city could lose one of its highest ranking and longest-serving police administrators to Grand Junction.

Lakewood Police Division Chief John Camper, who since September has been serving as Grand Junction’s interim police chief under a cooperative agreement between the cities, has applied for the permanent job, Lakewood City Manager Kathy Hodgson confirmed Monday.

City Council members Adam Paul and Doug Anderson questioned the agreement in August after learning that Lakewood taxpayers would pay Camper’s salary while he was on assignment in Grand Junction. Camper makes $113,880 a year as head of the Lakewood Police Patrol Division.

He joined Lakewood’s police team in 1981 and served as a patrol officer, public information officer, crime-prevention agent and as a detective in the Crimes Against Children unit. Camper, 50, also served as a supervising sergeant in the Internal Affairs and Theft Investigation units. After a promotion to Commander in 1999, he directed the LPD Communications Center and was a Watch Commander.

In 2004, Camper was promoted to Division Chief, leading first the Support Services Division and the Patrol Division. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Business Administration and graduated from the Senior Management Institute for Police.

Camper is a Grand Junction native and is a 1977 graduate of Grand Junction Central High School.

When Camper’s assignment to the West Slope city was announced, Lakewood Police Chief Kevin Paletta described his departing division chief as “an outstanding leader” who possesses “a wide variety of professional and personal talents.”

At the time, the agreement to send Camper to Grand Junction was described by City Hall as a chance for Camper to gain on-the-job experience as the GPD’s top cop, then return to Lakewood where he would put that experience to work for this city.

But the idea of having Lakewood taxpayers pick up the tab for Grand Junction by paying Camper more than $50,000 to lead that city’s police force rankled some citizens after the details of the deal were reported by the Edge.

“Every member of the community I have talked to believes this is a poor choice,” then-Councilman Anderson told Paletta during the Aug. 10 City Council meeting.

City Councilman Adam Paul, who also spoke against the cost of the deal at that meeting, questioned the potential loss of Camper, calling the division chief one of the LPD’s most effective and popular leaders.

“My other concern is: What if we fund this until January and they offer him the job and he takes it? We’ll lose one of our best,” Paul said.

The question of reimbursement arose again after Camper applied to be the West Slope city’s next Police Chief.

“I think that is a legitimate question,” Paul said Monday.

Although the Ward 4 councilman said the solution is not “cut and dried,” Paul said he thinks Lakewood should get some sort of “compensation” if Camper is hired by Grand Junction.

“I think it is something to be explored,” Paul said.

Hodgson agreed with Paul.

“I think that would be fair, under the premise that he went over with the understanding that there’s a big value that comes back to Lakewood when he came back to his employment with Lakewood,” Hodgson said. “It really changes if he doesn’t come back.”

Hodgson took over as the city’s top administrator a month after the previous administration agreed to send Camper to Grand Junction while keeping him on the Lakewood payroll.

Camper’s future in Grand Junction awaits the decision of an interview panel and the new chief in that city is expected to be chosen by mid-February after a national search for Gardener’s replacement.

Camper started the temporary job Aug. 31, five weeks Gardner announced his resignation July 22. When the agreement was announced, Camper told the Grand Junction Sentinel he did not plan to apply for the job on a permanent basis.