By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph city officials welcome the public’s input as they search for a new police chief.
The St. Joseph City Council hired a national search firm that specializes in law enforcement.
City Manager Bryan Carter urges residents to go to the City of St. Joseph website to give their opinion on the police chief search.
“We have a link to that survey out on the city’s website right now that just anyone in the community can jump on there and take,” Carter tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “It’s a really important tool that we’re going to use to develop the candidate profile. So, it’s an important step one of a multi-step process.”
Public input will be reviewed by the search firm, which will use community comments in developing its candidate profile. Those comments will be incorporated in the advertisement for a new chief.
Carter says it is all part of engaging the public in the vetting process for the next police chief.
“What we want to see in our next police chief and we’ll be getting some public input a little bit later about which person best matches that ‘what we want to see’ component,” according to Carter, who adds city officials will not see who made the comments, only the comments themselves.
Carter says it’s extremely important the city get this hire right.
“That’s leadership of one of the most important departments, if not the most important department, that the city has,” according to Carter. “And we’d like to get that leadership settled. We’re balancing that against having a good process that gets that community input and that gets quality candidates and gets the candidates in here.”
Long-time St. Joseph Police Chief Chris Connally retired at the end of September after serving in the role since 2006. Commander Dave Hart has stepped in to serve on an interim basis. Hart is not a candidate for the position.
Click HERE to take survey.