El Cajon police chief retiring

EL CAJON  —  Just as the El Cajon Public Safety Center is ready to open, the career of one of its top employees will be coming to a close.

El Cajon Police Chief Pat Sprecco will retire in December. The Pine Valley resident has been with the department for 39 years, a police officer for 35 years. He was named chief in 2008.

Sprecco said his last day on the job will be Dec. 9. After that, he said he will be spending time with his family, including his wife of 33 years, Alma. He said he is looking forward to playing “catch up for a while, and decompress” with their three children and five grandchildren, all of whom live in San Diego County.

“I’ll be with my family,” said Sprecco, who turns 56 in October. “Basically, I’ll do everything my wife asks me to do till she runs out of things to ask me to do. For the past 35 years, our lives have revolved around my job because it takes that.”

Sprecco, a 1973 El Capitan High graduate, said one of his proudest moments during his tenure was when his son, Nick, became an El Cajon police officer in 2001. Pinning his son’s badge on was a moving experience.

“He’s been the best police chief, ever,” said El Cajon City Manager Kathi Henry, who is retiring next week as well. “He’s so easy to get along with. He gets along with everybody.”

Henry said that Sprecco was instrumental in the new police station being built, even manning the phones to reach out to El Cajon voters in 2004 when they were asked to approve a half-cent sales tax increase for 10 years as part of Proposition O. Funds from the proposition were to go for a new public safety building, a new main fire station, a new animal shelter and the refurbishing of existing fire stations.

Sprecco doesn’t take any credit for the passing of the measure.

“I think there were so many other people that did so much work to get Prop. O passed,” Sprecco said. “All the thanks, the credit and recognition really belong to the people of El Cajon. This (public safety) building will be here long after everyone serving now is gone. These buildings are not for us, they’re for the public, to provide a service for them.”

Sprecco’s starting salary when he was named chief in 2008 was $161,616; he will retire making $178,380.

Sprecco first joined the El Cajon Police Department as a volunteer cadet in 1972 at age 16.

He was 18 and attending Grossmont College when he became a campus security officer. He was later hired part time by the El Cajon Police Department.

Sprecco was an intern in the Communications, Records and Investigations department, and he was hired as an officer in 1976 when he was 21.

Sprecco was promoted to sergeant in April 1982, became a lieutenant in January 1993, was appointed acting captain in February 2005, then was promoted to captain in January 2006.

Law enforcement has long been a Sprecco family tradition.

His father was a reserve El Cajon police officer in the late 1960s and early ‘70s while his mother was a reserve sheriff’s deputy. His son remains on the force.

Sprecco also has a son-in-law and brother-in-law who work in law enforcement. His wife also has relatives who are police officers. His brother, Joe, is a recently retired sheriff’s department sergeant.

Sprecco said he originally had planned to retire in 2008 but when then-police chief Cliff Diamond was forced to take a medical retirement because of heart problems, Henry asked him to step up.

“Kathi came to me and offered this opportunity,” Sprecco recalled. “It was nothing that I had planned for, it had never been my goal. But it was a great honor to be asked, to be her chief, the chief, for the city. I talked it over with my wife and it was, “Gosh, how could you say no?’ ”

The new city manager, still to be named, will pick a replacement for Sprecco in the coming months.