Randy Parmer will be Wildwood’s new police chief, effective March 11, after commissioners voted Monday night to hire him.
Parmer, a 31-year employee of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, replaces former chief Paul Valentino, who resigned at the end of last year. Parmer was recommended by a search committee headed by City Manager Jason McHugh.
Parmer’s starting annual salary will be $80,000 plus health, dental, vision and life insurance coverage. His salary will be evaluated after six months.
McHugh said Interim Chief Paul Sireci will continue through the end of March for a smooth transition.
“I can’t wait to get here and get started,” Parmer told commissioners. “Where else can you see a cow pasture on one side and a modern-day shopping center on the other? I appreciate this opportunity.”
Wildwood received 51 applications for the police chief post and selected four finalists. McHugh said Parmer clearly was the best candidate.
“We were blown away by him during the interview process,” McHugh said, adding that he will be a good fit with the city’s management team.
Since leaving the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in 2013, where he was a lieutenant, Parmer has held four jobs.
Most recently, he worked 10 months as a captain with the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco. Before that, he spent 13 months as police chief in Taos, N.M.
When he left that job in May 2017, Parmer told the Taos News that his return to Florida was due to “a personal family matter that I’ve been dealing with and it’d be easier to deal with there.”
He worked a year as manager of safety and security at the Fleet Landing retirement community in Jacksonville and two years with the Duvall County School Police Force.
Valentino, who served as Wildwood police chief for about a year and a half, left at the end of December. Two other command officers, Deputy Chief Gerald Olbek and Capt. Ashley Rogers, also resigned.
Their departures came after clashing with the city manager and expressing concerns about mold and asbestos exposure at the department’s 52-year-old headquarters, which was severely damaged Oct. 21 by an electrical fire. After the fire, the department was forced to move into a temporary trailer on the former station site.
Wildwood is building a new $7 million police station on the southwest corner of U.S. 301 and County Road 462 West.
