La Cygne police chief brings experience, knack for working with people to new post
By Roger Sims, Journal staff
LA CYGNE – During a sales call to La Cygne City Hall a couple of years ago, a man selling supplemental insurance listened to City Clerk Jodi Wade make an offhand comment about the city needing police officers. The comment piqued his interest, and he applied for an open part-time police officer post with the city.
Flash forward to Wednesday, Oct. 7, and that former insurance salesman receives a nearly unanimous vote to become the city’s new chief of police. John-Francisco Mariño, already serving as interim chief following the resignation of Zachary Mathies in August, was sworn in as the police chief by Mayor Debra Wilson in front of the council and several of his relatives following the vote. (The vote was 4-0-1 with Councilmember Oscar Mariño, the police chief’s father, recusing himself.)
Because La Cygne is a third class city and personnel turnover in police departments in rural towns on the edge of growing metropolitan areas can be brisk, the rise from part-time officer to police chief can be meteoric at times. But Chief Mariño’s résumé in law enforcement is much deeper than his tenure in La Cygne, where he was hired as a part-time office in September 2024, upgraded to full-time in June 2025, and was then made interim chief.
Mariño graduated from the Kansas Law Training Center in 2012 after serving as a mechanic in the Army Reserves for a two year stint beginning in 2009, when he served in Iraq. In 2012, he was hired as a full-time officer in 2012 and served there until 2018. In 2020 he hired onto the force in Edwardsville.
Under the two years that Mathies was police chief for the city, that post slowly morphed into one that was more heavily administrative. Mathies took over the role of community development director in addition to his police chief duties after his wasn’t able to find the right person for the director post, which was mainly focused on codes administration and building codes enforcement.
In the Oct. 7 meeting, Mariño asked for the city council to go into a closed-door session to talk about the scope of duties under his new position. However Mayor Wilson diverted the request by asking to discuss the post in open session unless he needed to discuss a personnel matter or other subject that was covered under Kansas Open Meeting law.
His question to the council was whether they wanted him to focus more on patrolling or continuing with the administrative tilt that Mathies had taken.
The consensus of the council was to leave it up to the new chief and come back to the council once he had a better grasp on the duties of the post.
Both he and Officer Josh Higgins have had to step into codes enforcement, particularly with a duplex in the northeast part of the city. Mariño said he learned quite a bit about codes enforcement from Mathies, but he also has several friends who are contractors that he has turned to for questions.
And while being in charge of codes enforcement and being the city’s top cop can both bring criticism from residents, Mariño has proven to adept at public relations. The owner of house that was under the city’s microscope has told the council that he is an official that people can work with.
“The thing I love the most about being a policeman is interacting with the people,” the new chief said.
He said he has a sense of accomplishment whenever he can help people, whether that is a legal or even a medical issue. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’ t enjoy the adrenaline-pumping part of his job either.
“I would be lying if I didn’t say I love chasing bad guys,” he said with a smile.
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