An environmental and government watchdog advocacy group wants President-elect Barack Obama to bring back Teresa Chambers, the former Durham police chief who later tangled with the Department of Interior as its U.S. Parks police chief.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, known as PEER, released a nominee wishlist of people it recommends for the Obama administration, Barb Barrett reports.

Chambers was fired from her post as chief of the U.S. Parks after complaining about low staffing levels to the Washington Post. She is tried to re-gain her job with PEER’s support, but she has not yet been successful.

Here's what the group recommended in a release today:

Teresa Chambers as Chief of the U.S. Park Police. Just days after giving an interview with the Washington Post, revealing low staffing levels, Chief Teresa Chambers was ordered to surrender her badge, weapon and ID and was relieved of her duties. In what has become the prime example of the Bush administration's suppression of information, Chambers was ultimately removed from the Chief position. She recently won an appeal of that action before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Chambers is presently serving as Chief of Police for Riverdale Park, a town in Prince George's County, Maryland.

Former Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph is heading back home to Charlotte, just months after moving up to Washington to work for federal immigration officials.

Pendergraph’s resignation – to spend more time with his family, he said – comes a few weeks after he criticized U.S. Rep. David Price’s budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in comments to a local news agency, reports Barb Barrett.

Such out-of-school remarks about congressional budgets are considered a political no-no on Capitol Hill. (Some political observers will recall that National Parks police chief Teresa Chambers – a former police chief in Durham – was fired in 2004 after complaining to The Washington Post about the parks police budget.)

Pendergraph, a Democrat and strong supporter of workplace enforcement, began work in Washington last fall to help coordinate federal and local efforts. He complained in July to a Durham television program that the 2009 congressional appropriations bill didn’t include enough money for job site crackdowns.

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, had chosen to focus spending on finding and deporting illegal immigrants already convicted of crimes. Price is chairman of the homeland security spending subcommittee, and so in charge of writing the bill for ICE’s funding.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials quickly called Price’s office to distance themselves from Pendergraph’s remarks. A spokesman said Pendergraph wasn’t authorized to give opinions about the budget.

Pendergraph told The Charlotte Observer the dust-up had no impact on his decision to leave Washington.

“That was a couple months ago,” he said. “That issue has nothing to do with my decision to resign and come home to Charlotte.”

Hat tip: Charlotte Observer

Correction: An earlier post incorrectly listed Pendergraph as a Republican. 

Former Durham Police Chief Teresa Chambers is back on the police beat. Chambers was sworn in Thursday as the new police chief for Riverdale Park, Md., a suburb of Washington.

Chambers became a cause celebre after she left Durham to head the National Parks police force in Washington. She was removed from her post in 2004 when she talked to the media about budget cutbacks on the police force, and she has been fighting her firing in the federal legal system ever since, reports Barb Barrett.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an advocacy group helping Chambers with her case, said Chambers’ legal action now is awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals.

In her new job, Chambers returns to Prince George’s County, Md., where she was a police officer for two decades.