Chaffee gets a new police chief

Posted 4:45 p.m. Thursday

I can still remember being a fledgling reporter at the Southeast Missourian, and my first real taste of Scott County small town political drama. Of course, at the center of the play was a police chief.

In this particular case, the chief was Marc Tragesser, the man who came to Oran in the summer of 2005 (about eight months after I started my first full-time job here as a beat reporter) and quickly proceeded to tear the little down apart. Not saying that was intentional, or that Tragesser can even be blamed, but that's what happened — the townspeople engaged in psychological cannibalism.

That saga lasted for some time, until Tragesser had enough and took another job elsewhere. Believe me, I never had fun covering the Tragesser saga in Oran, despite what some of the townspeople thought. It quickly became tiring hearing accusations thrown back and forth that couldn't be proved. And it became tiring being the object of an entire town's hatred. That wasn't for me.

Once Tragesser left, things quieted down a bit, and I thought such major small town political theater was over. After all, how often can things like this take place? Truth is, very often in Southeast Missouri.

It didn't take long for the next controversy to crop up.

This time a Scott County police chief was again at the center — Martin Keys, who took over as Chaffee police chief after the death of Jeff Womack in September 2006. It didn't take a month for Keys to be embroiled in turmoil after one of his officers was involved in a fatal police pursuit.

Ever since, Chaffee has dealt with power struggles and accusations surrounding the police chief, city council and police personnel board. And honestly, I'm glad I'm not a Scott County beat reporter any more.

But as of this writing, it looks like Chaffee's getting a new police chief to replace Jesse Chisum. Honestly, I know nothing about Jim Chambers (the guy believed to be the likely replacement as of the time of this writing) other than what we've reported in the past few days.

All I can say is I wish Chambers and Chaffee good luck, if indeed he is the pick. If he's not, then good luck to whomever takes the job. I'm from a small town (Bloomfield, Mo.), and I know infighting is a part of life in tiny communities. But some people are able to handle, and control, the political bickering better than others. Let's hope Chaffee's new chief is one of those people.

Out for the weekend

I'm out for the weekend, so you won't see another blog from me until Monday. I encourage you to check out the River City Music Festival downtown this weekend, where my band will perform.