Wednesday, October 13, 2010

After 18 Months, Bill O'Brien To Be Named Permanent Police Chief

Finally, Bill O'Brien is being named permanent police chief on Thursday.

Our support for him has not waned, but we feel sorry for him. He is in a no win situation. He is being appointed by the most corrupt and inept Chief Executive Officer and Board of Commissioners in the history of this county. As if that is not enough, the morale of the police department is at historic lows, with what can only be described as mutiny bubbling under the service.

Read further here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chief O'Brien is no fool, but he is hindered by the fact he can be fired for no cause by the county. There is much he can do to help out the situation, and I beg all of you to offer well thought and concise suggestions to help the chief.

a few suggestions from one who is out of the loop.

Track down the 911 call center funding. If the funding is as we suspect, going to the general fund and then disbursed to DKPD bring it to the medias attention. 911 funding is to go to the 911 call center directly and if it is going to the general fund it is in violation of the law. Use the money to fix 911 before someone gets killed.

Another shake-up or reorganization of DKPD command is needed to improve morale and the efficiency of the department.

Take the morale and operational issues to the commission and press them as far as possible without getting yourself fired.

Now is the time for strong leadership from DKPD command. The department is screwed by the BOC and politics at every move. Move beyond the politics and drive forward.

Develop a trusted relationship with the news media. Use the media to highlight issues concerning DKPD.

The very best of luck, Chief! Good hunting!

Anonymous said...

Ahh.... honestly.... I have no faith in the thought that anything will change. Punch the clock, do my job and go home to the family....that's what life at DKPD has become.

Congrats to O'Brien on the promotion, the pay raise, and the take home....just remember where you came from.

Anonymous said...

Everything negative that happens within this police department is now blamed on the commissioners or the CEO. This is a handy, ready made excuse for failure within the department and a way for the command staff to take 0% of the blame for the morale problems. I have never met a good leader who constantly blamed someone else.

The BOC is grossly incompetent and the CEO just seems to make one misstep after another. Base on their decisions and actions I conclude that they could care less about the police department. Their decisions to throw money at undeserving civilian employees, while they are screwing the police department are disgusting. This blog has called them out on many of these decisions and I am thankful for that.

Money is tight and we can’t have everything we want right now. However, we must demand that the CEO and the BOC treat us better than they have and better than they apparently plan to in the future.

Now that O’Brien is the chief, he should do everything he can to support us with the CEO and the BOC. But as Loflyer points out, he can only go so far in this regard. Loflyer also states that O’Brien should do something different with his command staff and this is something that he has complete control over. Many people feel that he has appointed too many of his friend and he only listens to his friends. I am not sure that this is true.

The guy in charge of the Uniform Division is crazy and he has been killing the morale in this department for over a year. That is not a BOC problem and that is not a CEO problem. That is a Chief O’Brien problem and he should do something about it.

Matt said...

O'Brian could be a great leader but nothing will change until you do like (I hate to say it but) Vernon did with Tebo Coleman and make the chiefs merit protected if not they can't fight anything because they will be fired for sticking their neck out and why should a Chief stick their necks out for to lead a group of people who just sit around and bitch. Everybody including me has long said the view must be great from the ivory tower. But how about challenging each other by now saying the view is comfortable from the peanut galore. Come together and support each other. Until we do this it doesn’t matter who they put to head this place nothing major will change.

Anonymous said...

Why didnt we open the position for a Nationwide search to get a better crop of qualified candidates. Oh yea probably because Mr. CEO needs a yes Sir Man Chief. The CEO runs the Police Department, not the Director or Chief. See yall later im outa here too. 15 years.

Anonymous said...

Ok...c'ya

Anonymous said...

Columbia Southern University? They got a football team or are they one of those close line colleges?
I mean online colleges. :-)

Anonymous said...

Snob.