LPD Officer Chris Cleven eyes commission seat, vowing to defend private property rights and improve roads

Cleven solved a high-profile rash of vandalisms in 2023, but has also netted a use-of-force lawsuit and a demotion in his 16 years behind the badge. He is one of five candidates seeking the office.

Laramie Police Officer Chris Cleven is squaring off against three other Republican candidates in the race for Albany County Commission.

Alongside Cleven, Thad Hoff, Julie McCallister and Troy Heien are all competing for their party’s nomination in the race for a single open seat on the three-member body. The race is this year’s most hotly contested primary.

“As a Peace Officer, I spent the last 16 years serving our community,” Cleven writes in an answer to questions posed by Vote411.org. “I have a unique understanding of regulatory frameworks and state statutes — experiences that will be invaluable in navigating the complexities of county governance. I orchestrated the only formation of a road district in [the] last 10 years in our county. This experience underscored my belief in grassroots governance and the power of community-driven solutions.”

In his 16 years in law enforcement, Cleven has focused on impaired driving and crime prevention. He was recently commended for his work connecting and solving a spree of vandalism and burglaries, but his activities behind the badge have not always been praised.

In 2010, Cleven tased a UW student who was allegedly fleeing the scene — a quick decision that left the suspect with severe injuries, including fractured teeth, and cost the city $49,000 in a later lawsuit settlement. In 2022, then a sergeant on the force, Cleven was demoted following an “internal investigation.” The candidate stands by his actions in the Taser incident, but refuses to discuss the demotion in any detail.

As a candidate, Cleven is promising to focus on county roads — their maintenance, ownership and safety — and reduce development regulations, such as those put in place to protect the Casper Aquifer and others limiting subdivision.

“There are regulations that are taking away people’s private property rights where they’re not able to use their land [or] use the property for what they want to use it for,” he said. “Am I saying I’m trying to get in to wipe everything away? No, that’s not what I’m trying to do. But at the same time, we have to look at the idea that this is somebody’s property. Property rights are there.”

Cleven said he’s not necessarily opposed to the current aquifer protection overlay zone (APOZ) regulations, but he thinks the county should do a better job of incorporating feedback from area residents and coming up with solutions that please a majority of the people at the table.

“Those protections do not nullify the landowners,” he said. “We need to come up with a good solution. And I’m not specifically talking about the aquifer. When we develop regulation, we need to be bringing those people in and saying, ‘What do you think about this?’ Not just doing it because we think it’s right.”

Cleven has never before run for a countywide elected office, but he got a taste for community organizing when he helped to form the Pope Springs Community Special Road Improvement District.

“With our road that we lived on there was no formal road maintenance,” he said. “So what we ended up doing is I worked with some of the other landowners, I orchestrated and came up with a letter we sent out to everybody [that said]: ‘This is what the problem is. This is how we can fix it. Let's see what we can do.”

Cleven asked his neighbors for a $400 buy-in — a flat rate no matter how far up or down the road they lived — and he said about two-thirds of the residents agreed. The general plan was to bring in about 1,000 tons of material and build the road back up. Cleven started reading state statutes and happened upon the idea of creating a special improvement district.

“First, you have to come up with a petition that lays out — kind of like a constitution — here's what we want to do, this is where we want to do this [and] how we want to do it,” Cleven said. “So I worked with several different landowners … and so we talked about it, and we came up with an idea.”

Less restrictive than a typical private homeowners association, a road improvement district charges properties along the road through their property taxes and funnels those sums back into the care and upkeep of the road itself. The money is used for projects like grading or filling potholes. The district is overseen by a board, elected by and from the district’s landowners. Cleven served as the president of the board for its first four years.

“That was really where I got interested in — I don’t want to say politics because I hate the idea of politics — but really [started to] branch out from law enforcement,” he said.

A Laramie Police Department vehicle moves through a downtown intersection. // Photo: Tony Webster

A long career in law enforcement

Specialties

Cleven said he has “always wanted to be a cop.” But while he has spent the better part of the last two decades doing just that, he didn’t start out in law enforcement.

Moving to Laramie in 1999, Cleven got into the automotive industry, working as a General Motors master technician and as an instructor at WyoTech. He also worked as a volunteer firefighter and EMT before finding his way into his dream job.

Cleven was hired by the Laramie Police Department in late 2007, and took an immediate interest in cracking down on DUIs.

“I really focused a lot on impaired driving,” he said. “Because it doesn’t just hurt the individual that’s driving and making the bad choices. It hurts so many more people within our community.”

Cleven said he has had his own close calls, times when his life has been threatened by the bad choices others have made on the road. He said one of those close calls came in 2010 when he was on the job, in his cruiser, at the intersection of Third and Grand Avenue.

“I turned right to go north on Third Street, moved into the left lane, and just at the last minute — you can actually see in the dash camera video — the Lord must have intervened because right at the last minute, my car just barely turned left, which gave me just enough room,” Cleven said. “So instead of the car hitting me on the back, it sideswiped me. He impacted the wall at almost 90 miles an hour.”

Cleven said the driver lived, but the incident was a stark reminder of the importance of his work. Cleven eventually moved up to crime prevention, receiving training in a concept known as CPTED, or crime prevention through environmental design. But he preferred getting out into the community.

“I wasn’t a desk person,” he said. “I enjoy being on the street, talking with people and interacting with people. And feeling like I’m making a difference when I was going looking for DUIs and impaired driving. Talking to people, solving crimes, helping people — I enjoy that. So I came back out to patrol.”

2010: Taser incident and lawsuit

The year 2010 was not simply the year an impaired driver sideswiped Cleven’s cruiser. It was also the year Cleven made the quick decision to deploy his Taser in an incident that would result in serious injuries and a costly lawsuit.

On April 29, 2010, Officer Cleven responded to a report that a drunk University of Wyoming student was refusing to leave the Library Sports Grille & Brewery. When Cleven arrived, however, the student, Patrick Lewallen, had already left.

Lewallen was crossing Grand Avenue on foot when Cleven tased him from behind.

“Unfortunately, when we showed up, the guy wasn’t cooperating and actually took off running,” Cleven said. “So we did what we do. We tried to apprehend the criminal. Unfortunately, because he was running at the time, when the Taser was applied, he fell in just the wrong spot … There was no ill intent, nothing wrong there.”

Lewallen’s face hit the curb. According to the lawsuit, he broke his nose and suffered both facial and dental fractures; four teeth were later removed by an oral surgeon.

Lewallen sued the city of Laramie, LPD Chief Dale Stalder, LPD Lt. Jonlee Anderle and Cleven himself, alleging that Cleven used unnecessary force and that the other defendants had failed to train him properly.

While Cleven said Lewallen was fleeing, the former student’s account of that night differs. According to the lawsuit, Lewallen was not aware that police were trying to stop him and allegedly received no warning before being tased.

“Lewallen was committing no crime, was nonviolent and posed no threat to anyone,” the lawsuit states, according to contemporary reporting from the Casper Star-Tribune. “He was not fleeing and was not evading arrest — in fact, if he had to be arrested for anything, Cleven could have accomplished that after Lewallen had crossed the street to safety.”

Cleven has said — both then and now — that he acted appropriately in a chaotic situation.

“I feel really bad for what had happened, but at the same time, I did my job, I did what I was supposed to do,” he said. “But unfortunately, sometimes, you know, when we don’t have the cooperation of the suspect, things happen. So, at the end of the day, we’re trying to keep people safe.”

Lewallen was paid $49,000 from the city’s insurance plan in a 2012 settlement and Cleven did not admit wrongdoing. In an interview earlier this month, Cleven said the city payout was simply a smart financial decision on the part of the powers that be.

“It really just comes down to a budget decision by the Attorney General’s Office,” he said. “And talking to him, he’s like, ‘Yeah, you did nothing wrong. However, it’s cheaper for us to just do this $49,000 because I didn’t even have to have approval for it.’ So we do this $49,000 and this goes away; we can move on to something else. Trouble is, if I say no, I have to deal with everything afterwards. So our hands are kind of tied.”

2022: Alleged “policy violations” and demotion

Cleven advanced to the rank of sergeant, but lost that title in 2022 when then-Chief Dale Stalder demoted him. The reason for this demotion has not been shared with the public even though members of the public were tasked with signing off on the demotion itself.

During the July 2022 meeting of Laramie’s Civil Service Commission, Chief Stalder asked the commission to affirm Cleven’s demotion.

“In March of 2022 … we opened an internal investigation on one of our sergeants, Chris Cleven, who is accused of some policy violations,” Stalder said. “He was notified of that demotion in March of 2022. We brought it to Civil Service Commission in April. He had 30 days to appeal that demotion. He did not take any action, either through the city’s grievance process or through the Civil Service Commission. So according to a process established by the current city attorney, we’re coming to you to certify or affirm that demotion.”

Stalder was clear that more details would not be forthcoming.

“I can try to answer any questions you have about that,” he said. “It’s a personnel matter so details are going to be scarce, but the Civil Service Commission, according to the rules, needs to affirm that demotion at this time since he has not proceeded with any type of appeal either based on the city’s policy or the civil service rules.”

The demotion proposal itself states Cleven was being demoted “for reasons sufficient and established.”

The matter of police personnel records has been a hot-button issue in Laramie for years. As the community debated the formation of a civilian oversight board, both Chief Stalder and City Attorney Bob Southard warned that, under Wyoming law, such a board would be barred from viewing personnel records and that “personnel records” could be interpreted to include even body cam footage given that such footage could form part of a disciplinary internal investigation.

Advocates for greater police transparency have pushed back on this interpretation of state law, saying “personnel records” should be read more narrowly and that police officers belong to a special category of government employee, one deserving heightened scrutiny.

Police personnel records are locked up so tight that even the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission could not, until recently, access basic officer records — despite being the state agency tasked with assessing fitness for duty. A new state law, championed by Albany County Rep. Karlee Provenza (HD-45), closed this loophole.

Cleven himself was unwilling to share details of the demotion or the internal investigation that preceded it.

“There’s a lot of background involved in that that I can’t discuss right now,” he said. “There are some things that are pending. And that’s probably all I can really go into it, because there is a lot that led up to other issues prior to that. And it’s unfortunate. The city didn’t even have an HR person hired at the time. So there’s a lot of stuff that wasn’t being reviewed and evaluated.”

Despite Cleven’s statement to the contrary, the city did have human resources staff during the time period Cleven references.

“There has never been a period of time when [the] City did not have personnel responsible for human resources,” City Manager Janine Jordan writes in an email. “Three full time positions are/have been dedicated to city HR for at least a decade now.”

There was, however, a period between HR directors following the departure of the former and preceding the hiring of the next. During that time, some directorial duties were assumed by the city manager herself and another employee. The city also contracted with an HR professional to “cover other aspects.” At no point was the city without a fully functional Human Resources Department, Jordan said.

Cleven said he would prefer to talk about his goals for the commission, and said that’s what he’ll tell constituents if they ask him about the demotion on the campaign trail.

“At this time, I just can’t discuss it; there’s other things that are in play,” Cleven said. “But let me talk to you about what I’m going to do as a county commissioner. That’s the way I would respond.”

Chris Cleven (far left) poses for a photo alongside fellow officers and city councilors during a Laramie City Council meeting on April 16. // Photo courtesy of Owen Schildt/City of Laramie

2023: Solving a vandalism spree

More recently, Cleven was honored during a Laramie City Council meeting for solving a big case — or rather, solving dozens of cases by tying them together and finding the alleged culprits.

In 2023, Laramie suffered a rash of vandalisms and burglaries in which multiple young people allegedly damaged 33 cars, stole items out of those cars and egged both cars and houses. According to a Laramie Police Department news release, the minors caused $20,000 worth of damage.

“You start getting calls and you’re getting literally 30 to 40 calls within the first three hours of the day,” Cleven said, recalling his mindset on Dec. 6, the day his investigation began. “Like okay, something big happened last night. What’s going on?”

LPD started by gathering evidence in the usual way. Cleven said this even included putting rocks into evidence because “you try to gather all the information you can,” you can’t always anticipate what will be important down the road, and “you can’t go back and get it later.”

Eventually though, Cleven picked up the trail when he wasn’t even on the clock. As a driving instructor, Cleven was driving around with a student when they came across a 60-pack egg carton sitting in the road.

Cleven said he recognized where the carton came from, contacted the establishment and soon after started developing a list of suspects for the eggings. But Cleven noticed the eggings and the rock-based vandalisms and auto burglaries were in the same area.

“We went from eggs to rocks and auto burglaries, and there was enough similarities that in my mind, I’m thinking this may be related,” he said. “But I want to look at it a little bit deeper.”

Cleven said he eventually started tracing one of the electronic items that had been stolen from a car and used that GPS evidence to request search warrants, which led to even more stolen items and evidence.

In the end, Cleven tied more than 60 vehicle burglary and vandalism incidents to four teenage suspects. Four months later, he was recognized for his efforts during a meeting of the Laramie City Council. A letter of commendation penned by Chief Brian Browne praises Cleven for this “exceptional community service” and diligence:

Through his efforts, Officer Cleven, nearly single-handedly, closed in excess of 60 cases. He accomplished all of this while also training a new recruit; however, he continued excelling in his duties as a trainer during the investigation. During each step, Chris diligently used the opportunity to teach his new recruit how to conduct complex investigations, garnering a unique and compounding teaching evolution. Actions like these show the true spirit and character of a Laramie Police Department Officer.

Candidates for Albany County Commission — (from left to right) Chris Cleven, Brian Harrington, Thad Hoff and Julie McCallister — field questions during a League of Women Voters forum June 20. // Photo: Jeff Victor

Where Cleven stands on the issues facing the county

Cleven has shared his political stances across a number of platforms, including in an interview with the Reporter, in response to the Reporter’s candidate questionnaire, through his campaign website, during the League of Women Voters forum on June 20 and in response to questions published by the League of Women Voters to Vote411.org.

Property tax

Recent action by the legislature provided property tax relief for some Wyoming homeowners. Champions of this relief argued it would help those struggling to pay rising taxes; others worry it will hurt the counties and schools that rely on that tax base.

A proposed ballot initiative that could appear on General Election ballots one day would further reduce residential property taxes for owner-occupied property. The same dilemma faces Wyoming voters: Property tax relief benefits those receiving the relief, but also decreases government coffers.

“The proposed legislation, if placed on the ballot and passed by voters in the 2026 election, will be hard on local governments,” Cleven writes. “But, could it also be the catalyst for us to reign in government spending, requiring us to work within our budgets, like all American families?”

Working “within our budgets” still includes providing essential services, Cleven added.

“Prioritizing core services such as public safety, infrastructure maintenance, and essential services is critical,” he writes. “These foundational elements are fundamental to maintaining a high quality of life for all residents. Innovative approaches to revenue generation and cost-saving measures should be explored. This may include seeking grants, fostering public-private partnerships, and leveraging technological advancements to improve efficiency in service delivery.”

Aquifer protection

The Casper Aquifer is Laramie’s main source of drinking water. New regulations — pushed and passed by aquifer protection advocates both on and off the commission — limit what can be built on the land above the aquifer.

Cleven said these protections are adequate, meaning he would be unlikely to support any stricter requirements. While he has not said he would undo the current restrictions, he has said that current county regulations — about aquifer protection as well as rules prohibiting subdivision — are infringing on private property rights.

“When we start messing around with the size of a small lot residential, [when we] start messing around with, ‘Well, you can have this on there, but you can’t have that’ — that’s where the problems come up,” Cleven told the LWV forum. “And that’s where people start becoming really upset because we’re essentially making rules and regulations that fit some people but not everybody in the county.”

Cleven argued the county needs to do a better job incorporating input from landowners into its decision-making.

“If we’re going to be doing these things, we’ve got to get people on board and work with them and find an equitable resolution that works for the majority,” Cleven said in an interview with the Reporter. “You’re always gonna have outliers, you’re always gonna have people that refuse to have change. But you’ve got to try to bring them in.”

The presumptive Democratic nominee in this year’s commission race has made holding the line on aquifer protection a cornerstone of his campaign. If Cleven wins the Republican nomination, aquifer protection is likely to be a major campaign issue once again.

County emissions and energy efficiency

Both the city and the county have made efforts to bring down carbon emissions while making government facilities more energy efficient. Like many climate solutions, the green option tends to be more cost effective in the long-run, if not also in the short-run.

Cleven said he can get behind green projects, such as outfitting county facilities with solar panels, as long as they’re a good financial investment.

“I believe the county owes it to the citizens to evaluate the cost of every building, for both upkeep as well as utilities,” he writes. “By reviewing the return on investment for renewable energy, the county will have a full picture of the utilities used and ways to cut costs, saving the citizens funds to use for roads or reduce taxes. I don’t mind green energy, but you also have to evaluate the return on investment.”

Cleven put an even finer point on his position during the LWV forum last month.

“I also want to make sure we’re not just jumping on the bandwagon of renewable energy,” he said. “We always have to focus on the return on investment. Just because it sounds good doesn’t always mean it's going to be the best for our pocketbook.”

Wind turbines along I-80 in southeast Wyoming. // Photo: Tony Webster

Renewable energy

Cleven also has a personal connection to renewable energy.

“In April, I just purchased a wind turbine for my property,” he writes in response to the Reporter’s questionnaire. “Living in the county and having a large family, I am looking for any way to save, like all residents are in this economy. Doing the math, it just made sense!”

Large-scale wind energy development has taken Albany County by storm. At least seven major wind farms are online or are scheduled to go online in the next few years. While the impact assistance payments from those developments are, literally, paving Laramie’s roads, the farms have been met with hostility by some local landowners.

Those landowners have lodged and publicized complaints about the turbine’s environmental impacts and the way those turbines might hinder the view from their houses, as well as false claims alleging wind turbines aren’t green tech.

Republican and Democratic county commissioners have found common ground in supporting these turbines — though they converge on that support from different angles. For Democrats, embracing renewable energy is doing one community’s small part to combat climate change. For Republicans, it’s as simple as not limiting private property rights or business.

For Cleven, property rights are paramount.

“The property that we have is what I purchased … I can’t control the land that’s my neighbor’s; I can’t control my view,” he said. “My master bedroom window faces the Snowy Mountains. I enjoy it — we built our house with that design. But at the same time, I also have the understanding that somebody may put something up that would block that view. That’s part of the idea of not being able to purchase a ton of acreage.”

Government transparency

Commission meetings are open to the public, advertised ahead of time, streamed live, and available after their conclusion on YouTube — but they are not well attended. Candidates have been asked by both the Reporter and the LWV how they would ensure transparency.

“People will come to meetings or participate when it means something to them,” Cleven writes in response to the Reporter’s question. “I think the biggest issue is getting information out there for people to be aware of so that it means something to them. Getting to hear their voice is so incredibly important.”

Cleven put forward an idea about how to hear those voices during his forum appearance.

“One of the first things that I’d like to see changed is probably an online poll,” he said. “It’s known, it’s common, and people can actually go online and be able to [share] if they're having an issue with something or they’re having concerns. And then every month, at least a portion of the meeting is dedicated to discussing it, figuring out, if there is a problem, what resolutions could be … That will help us come up with different ideas and different plans for the future.”

Cleven also said, via the questionnaire, that he would use executive sessions sparingly.

“I would just about refuse to go into executive session unless required by law,” he writes. “These are the times when discussions do not have any accountability.”

Rental regulations

Laramie established rental regulations in early 2022, approving a basic set of health and safety standards for rentals within city limits. It also required landlords to register their units and launched a formal complaint system for use by tenants.

Those regulations are now being threatened by draft legislation. High-profile Laramie residents, including City Manager Jordan, have gone to bat, defending the City Rental Housing Code in open testimony before lawmakers.

But those lawmakers have also heard from landlords, such as Brett Glass, who argue the rental housing code is onerous and have requested lawmakers step in to kill it. Cleven agrees with Glass, at least on the matter of whether the rental regulations go too far.

“Too much government overreach causes problems,” Cleven told the LWV forum audience. “Sometimes we’re fixing problems that aren’t there. Now, am I saying that every landlord out there in Laramie was providing safe and adequate residences? No, I’m sure not. But at the same time, overregulation can actually stifle [business].”

Cleven, echoing Glass, said the regulations have negatively impacted Laramie’s rental housing stock.

“I’ve heard of a lot of people that have sold their property, that have decided to move out of the city just simply because of the overregulation and the burdensome issues that they’re having,” Cleven said. “You start taking a look at the registration fees. At the end of the day, it feels like all it is is taking money and funding simply to provide a larger government.”

The registration fees work out to $1.67 per month per unit, but landlords have used that fee to justify rent hikes several magnitudes larger.

The rental housing code requires that rental units be structurally sound, weatherproofed and free of pests or mold. It also dictates that any major electrical, plumbing or heating work within the unit must be performed by licensed professionals, and that bedrooms must be outfitted with fire escape windows. It also requires carbon monoxide detectors around carbon monoxide sources.

News habits

Candidates were asked, during the LWV forum, where they got their news.

Across the U.S., many communities are becoming news deserts, where citizens are unable to access information about their local government and unable to meaningfully take part in community conversations. Research shows that news deserts drive citizens to social media and divert attention away from the local onto the national. This enables local corruption, breeds polarization and decreases civic participation.

Cleven didn’t name any of his go-to sources, but said he gets his news online. That puts him in line with the half of U.S. adults who get their news, at least sometimes, through social media.

“To be honest with you, I don’t look at the [Laramie] Boomerang very much,” Cleven said, adding he does see the Boomerang at work sometimes. “But otherwise, a lot of stuff I get is talking to people [and] obviously, just like anybody else nowadays, the internet … But you also have to be careful of what you’re looking at. You have to make sure that the sources are accurate and that you’re getting reliable information from there as well.”