Citing more opportunities and bigger pay in the private sector, Fountain Police Chief Dan Corsentino submitted his resignation to the city manager Tuesday, 16 months after taking the job.

The former longtime Pueblo County sheriff has taken a private security job that will send him all over the nation planning event security and consulting on homeland security. He would not identify the company that hired him.

His last day as police chief, a $95,000-a-year position, will be June 30.

Corsentino said that even if the job had not come up about three weeks ago, he would have considered leaving Fountain because of his increasing frustration with a constrained budget.

“There’s a lot of issues financially with all of us in the recession. For a chief of police, we want to make the biggest impact possible. I wasn’t able to move as quickly as I wanted to,” Corsentino said.

He gave the example of an aging fleet of vehicles and computers that the department needs but the city can’t afford as one of his frustrations.

“I don’t think the frustration was as much of a factor as the ability to enhance my career in the private sector,” Corsentino said.

Corsentino started his law enforcement career with the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office in 1987, serving four terms as Pueblo County sheriff before leaving office in 2007. He ran unsuccessfully in 2004 for the Republican nomination for the 3rd Congressional District. Before taking the Fountain chief job, Corsentino taught at Colorado State University in Pueblo, served on a Homeland Security National Advisory Board subcommittee and ran a private business, Corsentino Group, in which he advised businesses and churches.

Corsentino admitted that his resignation adds to the legacy of turnover the seat has seen in the past century. The city has had 97 police chiefs in 105 years. Corsentino is the fifth Fountain chief in the past 10 years. Larry Baldonado served as police chief from 1989 to 2000, followed by Dave Moore, John Morse, now a state senator, and Charles Crawford who resigned in Oct. 2008.

Crawford, a veteran Florida lawman, was put on administrative leave in the spring of 2008 after leaving his gun in a fast-food restaurant bathroom.

“(Turnover) destabilizes an organization,” Corsentino said. “The chiefs that are coming in the future will have somewhat of a difficult time.”

Corsentino has been living with his daughter, a Fountain resident, to fulfill the city’s requirement that the chief live in city boundaries. He will now return to living full-time at his home in Pueblo with his wife, he said.

The city will soon begin the process of finding Corsentino’s replacement but has not finalized what that process will look like, Deputy City Manager Dave Smedsrud said.

Marine Corps Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, of Plymouth, Mass. Photo by The Associated Press file

Denis Poroy