Original Article Tempe chief apologizes to his staff for letter Jahna Berry and Sarah Muench The Arizona Republic Apr. 26, 2006 12:00 AM Police Chief Ralph Tranter sent an e-mail to Police Department employees Tuesday apologizing for his "error in judgment" in asking for a light drug sentence for a councilwoman's son arrested in Tempe. "My advocacy in this matter was in direct conflict with my role as the Police Chief involving a case investigated by our own staff," the chief wrote. City Manager Will Manley also sent an e-mail to employees saying that he and Tranter are ready to "move on." "To his credit, Chief Tranter has discussed this situation in detail with me and apologized fully for his lapse of judgment. I fully accept the Chief's apology. We have both learned a great deal from this ordeal and will be better administrators for it." However, the city manager would not disclose what, if any, punishment the city's top cop will face for his actions. "I don't talk about personnel matters publicly," Manley said. It's been nearly a month since a report concluded that Tranter violated city rules by writing a letter for the councilwoman's son. The report, conducted for $15,000 by an outside attorney, was made public March 28, and Manley said that he expected to make a decision about possible discipline within weeks. Tranter referred questions to city spokeswoman Nikki Ripley. Tranter's 2006 personnel record has no mention of the initial internal complaints, the city's probe, the outside attorney's report or any discipline related to the matter, the Tempe Republic found. But the attorney's report will eventually become part of Tranter's file, Ripley said. The public should be told how the incident was resolved, said Tim Delaney, founder and president of the Center for Leadership, Ethics and Public Service in Phoenix. "The public wants to be assured that action has been taken rather than this silence," Delaney said. "Either he (the city manager) agrees with the report and some action should be taken or he doesn't agree with the report." The secrecy surrounding the outcome of the Tranter probe is the latest twist in the controversy involving the chief and Councilwoman Barbara Carter. City workers filed an internal complaint when they learned that the police chief wrote a letter recommending probation in the sentencing of Colby Carter, the councilwoman's 32-year-old son. Colby Carter was arrested in Tempe on March 18, 2005, on suspicion of five felony counts of growing and possessing marijuana. He was sentenced March 3 to two years probation, four months work furlough and the minimum of 240 hours of community service. Work furlough inmates go to work while they are incarcerated but spend the rest of their time in county custody. Court records show that Carter, a skate park designer for Tempe-based Site Design Group, Inc., had been arrested twice before on similar incidents, once in Mesa in 1994 and once in Flagstaff in 1996. He served nearly five days in jail and got probation for the Flagstaff case. Although Carter faced up to three years in state prison for the Tempe arrest, Tranter wrote an Oct. 4 letter to the court recommending probation. The chief and Councilwoman Carter have both stressed that Tranter volunteered to write the letter, that it wasn't written on city letterhead and that Tranter didn't mention his title in the letter. Although Tranter has said he has written other letters like it, he acknowledged in the investigation that during his tenure as chief, he's never written another letter recommending probation on behalf of a defendant. Carter's and Tranter's families don't socialize with one another, and Tranter met Colby Carter for the first time shortly before writing the letter, the report said. Tranter violated the city's personnel rules and the police code of conduct, and impaired city employees' performance when he wrote the letter for Colby, wrote Phoenix attorney Jon Pettibone, who authored the report. The case hasn't damaged police morale, said Kerby Rapp, president of the Tempe Officers Association. "Overall, we handle every investigation the same regardless if it is an officer brand new in the police academy or the police chief," the union official said. "This issue is resolved and as an organization, we are moving on and we are very pleased to see our police chief and city manager have resolved the situation." Rapp said other issues like staffing and wages have had a greater effect on police morale than the chief's letter. "Our focus is providing quality police service to the citizens of Tempe and we do our best not to allow outside influences to interfere with that goal," he said. Throughout the saga, City Council members, including the mayor, have declined to say much. Councilman Hut Hutson said he has purposely not asked Manley about the issue for that very reason. Until Tranter and Manley e-mailed police employees on Tuesday, he didn't know if there was an outcome to the report. "I just hope that it's over," Hutson said.