Details released from Chaffee City Council vote to hire police chief

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Chaffee's city council voted 5-3 last week to rehire former chief Jim Chambers, according to details of a closed-session vote released Tuesday.

Council members who voted for rehiring Chambers with full tenure were Darlene Crocker, Ron Davis, Bob Sullivan, Ann Whistler and Ronald Eichhorn. Jerry Childers, Ryan Pennington and Dennis Glastetter voted against the motion, according to minutes released by the city clerk.

Chambers was fired by the council in a closed session meeting March 1 after several council members said he lied when asked about his instructions to city employees to shoot a dog believed to be a stray.

Police logs of the Chaffee Police Department from Feb. 19 showed Chambers and the mayor told a police officer and another city employee to shoot the dog and not tell anyone. Phone records also showed late-night phone calls were exchanged between Chambers and police department employees the day the dog was shot after a dispatcher advised him the dog's owner was calling police asking if anyone had seen the dog. The owner told the dispatcher the dog was sick and had gotten loose accidentally.

After the owner discovered the dog had been shot, she filed a complaint with the Missouri Department of Agriculture, which prompted an investigation into the city's practices for dealing with animals. The department shut down the city pound for a time until facilities were brought to the standards necessary for meeting licensure requirements.

The decision of the council to fire Chambers was not supported by the city's police personnel board back in February. The board submitted a recommendation to the council not to suspend him until further information on the incident was received or he was charged with a crime.

Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter said following the incident that he believed Chambers and the mayor had committed a crime when the dog was shot and requested charges for both, but prosecutors declined to file any, citing a lack of evidence that would result in a criminal conviction.

A majority of council members this time followed the police board's recommendation to rehire Chambers, and he was back on the job as early as last Tuesday, the day after Chaffee Mayor Steve Loucks told around 30 residents who waited for an announcement outside city hall that 72 hours would pass before the city would release the result of the vote. State law allows a governmental body to wait that amount of time.

Jack Nordin served on the council for 16 years before he was unseated in April municipal elections by Bob Sullivan, who Nordin said helped circulate a petition among Chaffee residents that supported rehiring Chambers. Nordin, along with council members Ryan Pennington, Dennis Glastetter and Doug Sutterfield, voted to fire Chambers in March. Three city council members, Crocker, Davis and Childers, resigned during the same meeting but later voted to allow themselves to rescind their resignations.

"Too much buddy system" in Chaffee's city government is the single reason Chambers was rehired, Nordin said. He also acknowledged he lost his seat due to the controversy but said he couldn't vote to keep a chief who was dishonest.

Sullivan said he would not comment on the outcome of last week's vote when reached by phone Tuesday.

"The police board recommended it. That was the main thing," he said.

Glastetter said another member of the council also said during the closed session that they would not vote against the personnel board's recommendation.

Personnel board chairman Tom Cunningham said Tuesday he could not comment on why the board recommended rehiring Chambers. City clerk Diane Eftink said in an email that she did not have available the minutes of the meeting in which the board wrote the recommendation.

Glastetter said he believes the council members who voted to rehire Chambers do not understand why he was fired in the first place.

"He was not fired for the dog killing. They keep saying it was 'just a dog.'" he said. "It was for trying to cover it up."

There will be no break in Chambers' accrued vacation and sick leave time, according to Eftink. That time is based on years of service. Chambers was hired in September 2008.

Jody Cheney, a Scott County Sheriff's Department deputy who acted as Chaffee's interim chief, also applied for the chief position. Glastetter said the board told the council there was a tie between Cheney and Chambers as candidates, but that Chambers won out because he correctly answered a question about the existence of a traffic-related city ordinance. Cheney and two other police department reserve employees resigned following last Monday's meeting.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

Chaffee, MO