Riverview Police Chief Ronald Beggs
By ZEINAB NAJM
Sunday Times Newspapers
RIVERVIEW — The ongoing process of hiring a new deputy police chief continues as questions were raised, including why not promoting within the department, was considered.
Discussions on the topic go back months where City Council members Chuck Norton and Sussie O’Neil asked questions during a council meeting on the hiring of a deputy chief from the outside of the department instead of within.
Typically, the city manager makes the decisions for hiring and firing city employees, Councilman Bill Towle said.
It also was mentioned by City Manager Douglas Drysdale at a Sept. 7 council meeting that Police Chief Ronald Beggs was evaluating staffing in the police department and it was Beggs’ recommendation to bring in and have someone as a deputy chief instead of an administrative lieutenant.
One candidate — not from the department — was interviewed for the position but has not been hired.
At a Sept. 13 study session, Drysdale said he had a long discussion with Beggs the week prior and decided to post the position within the department and see if there were any qualified candidates.
In an Aug. 21 email, Councilman Dean Workman submitted the questions raised to Drysdale. Beggs’ answers to each — some redacted — were provided in a email addressing the concerns and statements being raised.
Questions were focused on the hiring of the new deputy chief and issues with the police department that Beggs discovered.
The previous administrative lieutenant position, which is a union position, was something Beggs said would be removed as a change within.
Administrative Lt. Richard Troup’s retirement in August created an expected situation which Beggs believes creates a void that cannot best be filled by plugging in an internal candidate who either doesn’t want the position or is not qualified to fill, according to Beggs’ answers.
He said the position may have made “perfect sense” when it was established but it does not currently work, and that the department needs a No. 2 executive that will be engaged with the community, and attend events in evenings and weekends, not on an overtime basis, that adversely affects the budget.
“Bringing on the deputy chief position will accelerate our ability to develop a number of high-qualified candidates for command positions,” Beggs said in the email. “The candidate for deputy chief is not looking to be police chief nor is he looking for long-term employment. I consider the appointment of a deputy chief as a relatively short-term move — approximately three years — in order to quickly get the department to a place where it will run on autopilot regardless of who is chief and to have strong organizational resiliency when a critical incident occurs that challenges the policies, procedures and practices of the police department.”
The email said that problems in the Police Department that were significant were brought up to demonstrate the current state of the department and not for embarrassment.
“My original plan was to implement change slowly and incrementally to make the changes more palatable,” Beggs said. “However, in the last few weeks a number of issues came to light that have made it crystal clear that we cannot not wait to make some additional changes.”
According to the email, Beggs was advised that a lieutenant has been coming to work under the influence of alcohol and consequently falling asleep for a number of years. He learned that another supervisor was caught sleeping in his camper during the night shift, and it’s believed to have been a common practice; and he found a stack of inappropriate magazines containing scantily clad woman in the station.
One of the other questions raised was if hiring a deputy chief is a good way to spend the city’s limited resources and can the money be better spent hiring police officers and not a deputy chief.
In his response, several reasons were listed, including that getting a highly experienced and competent police executive at a salary of $40,000 to $50,000 is less expensive than the current administrative lieutenant; it is an appointed position that is not subject to contractual work hours or overtime; it is an appointed position that can be eliminated without issue; and that Beggs believes the candidate will allow the department to complete the time, resource and labor-intensive accreditation process which has been attempted three times but abandoned.
Other questions focused on the situation were asked and responded to in the email. One question was if it was factual if other police officers would leave if a deputy chief was promoted from outside the department and what the plan would be if that happened.
Another asked if there isn’t a plan to promote within, then why are command officers are being sent to command school. A third asked whether an outside hire would tell officers there is no future in the Riverview Police Department, will opportunities be limited, and would officers have to leave for other chances of advancement.
“I believe that nothing sends a stronger, more demoralizing message to our younger officers than watching unqualified personnel ascend through the ranks,” Beggs said. “I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that would be more likely to motivate an ambitious young officer to leave than knowing that advancement opportunities are given based on seniority rather than effort.”
The latest mention of the deputy chief position was at a Nov. 8 special meeting where Towle made his own comments following a closed session.
He said O’Neil and Norton raised concerns at a previous meeting about the chief going outside the department to fill the deputy chief role, and that the response to concerns has been available for review for weeks.
“I find it difficult that neither one of them has taken the time to review the chief’s response,” Towle said.
There was no response to Towle’s comments or update provided.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected].)