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There is no rush to fill the position of Marco Island police chief and that may be a good thing, because more than 220 applications already have been received.

The large stack of resumes collected during the past three weeks will be sorted into one of three categories: unqualified, qualified but not recommended, or qualified and recommended, City Manager Steve Thompson said.

“We’ll probably cut the stack in half at the first pass,” said City Clerk Laura Litzan of the three-foot paper stack on her desk.

At least a dozen residents of Lee and Collier counties are among those waiting to discover if they will make the to-be-interviewed pile.

Thompson said acting Chief Thom Carr, who also applied for the position, is “fully capable” of running the department during the application and hiring process.

Litzan and Thompson will each go through similar sorting processes and then narrow the candidates down to a goal of five finalists.

“If some applications come in after that and look exceptional, we’ll still consider them,” Thompson said.

Interviews will likely be conducted in mid-July with selection taking place by the end of the month.

Several applicants are vying for the position along with their co-workers and supervisors in local law enforcement agencies, including applicants from within the Marco Island Police Department and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.

The Naples police department yielded one person seeking the position: James Slapp, who retired as deputy chief in December.

An applicant with a controversial past, Jeffrey Hollan of Cape Coral, also applied for the position of chief. Hollan resigned from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in 2006 after allegations of inappropriate actions with female coworkers during an employee retirement party.

Charles Clifton, a 30-year veteran retired from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office is among the applicants who may be sorted into a “qualified” pile. Clifton vied for the Dade City police chief position in January, making the list of the top four finalists for that position.

Other Collier and Lee residents who applied for Marco Island police chief include:

n Robert Pastula of Fort Myers, a current assistant chief deputy for the U.S. Marshal’s Fort Myers Division.

n Vincent Ferrara of Cape Coral, a deputy inspector who retired from the New York City Police Department after 36 years of holding several ranks ranging from trainee to captain.

n Joseph Batte, a Marco Island resident who is a retired U.S. Special Agent and current president of Kristall Associates Inc., an investigations and compliance consulting firm.

n James Boylan of Marco Island, currently a professor of criminal justice at Edison College.