NORTH PROVIDENCE — Col. Steven M. Pare, the recently retired superintendent of the state police, and two former North Providence police chiefs will serve on the mayoral transition team for Charles A. Lombardi.

Lombardi, who is unopposed in the special mayoral election on April 17, said Pare; former Police Chief William V. Devine, now head of the criminal investigations division for the attorney general’s office; and former chief Ernest E. Ricci, who retired as executive director of the state’s emergency 911 system, will look at the operations of the Police Department.

“They will be visiting the department and will ask the necessary questions,” Lombardi said. “I have assured them that my job will be to carry through on their recommendations. We need to get rid of the politics in the Police Department and leave the police business to the Police Department.”

Lombardi said that before running for mayor he was concerned that some top candidates for police promotions, whose names were on the top of the lists, were bypassed in favor of candidates who ranked fourth or fifth on the list.

“As far as I’m concerned, the Police Department has been plagued in recent years by interdepartmental controversy that needs to be addressed. You can only do that with individuals who enjoy the reputation of the law enforcement community, as these men do.”

Lombardi said he couldn’t say whether Police Chief Ernest Spaziano’s job is in jeopardy, saying that depends on what Pare and the others recommend.

Lombardi said he will also have teams looking at the Fire Department, the Finance Department and the division of inspections. Lombardi noted that under the administration of A. Ralph Mollis, who is now the secretary of state, fund-raising tickets were sold last year to a third of the members of the Police Department, which he said made the department potentially “rife” for political corruption. Soon after the sale of the $125 tickets to town employees was discovered, Mollis said solicitations to employees were “regrettably true” but an oversight. He returned the money, but was slapped with a $3,000 fine in December by the state ethics commission.

In 2004, after it was reported that tickets to a fundraising dinner for the mayor bore the names of three police officers, the fire chief and the Fire Department’s communications director, Mollis said it was perfectly proper for town employees to organize a fundraiser for their boss in their off-duty time, saying. “If I didn’t think it was OK, we wouldn’t be doing it.”

Ricci was named police chief in 1979. He stepped down seven years later to direct the state’s 911 system. Devine was a major in the Providence Police Department when he was named chief in North Providence in 1995, a job he held until early 2002.

rdujardi@projo.com