{"id":1941,"date":"2012-08-14T16:35:06","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T20:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1941"},"modified":"2012-08-14T16:35:06","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T20:35:06","slug":"coatesville-council-names-temporary-police-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=1941","title":{"rendered":"Coatesville Council names temporary police chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Bell, who previously led departments in Valley Township and Cheyney University, got the nod<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jamie Richard<\/strong>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>COATESVILLE \u2013 City council named former Valley Township and Cheyney University police chief Jim Bell as acting police chief at its Monday meeting.<\/p>\n

The decision to appoint Bell, 70, was an addition to the agenda and was a unanimous 5-0 decision; council president Ed Simpson and councilman Jeffrey LoPrinzi were absent from the meeting.\u00a0 Prior to Bell\u2019s appointment, Sgt. James Audette served as acting officer in charge of the department.<\/p>\n

According to council vice president Joseph Hamrick, Bell was interviewed with other candidates for the part-time position in July.\u00a0 Hamrick went on to state that Bell has also expressed interest in the full-time chief position.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very qualified\u2026he was a law enforcement officer in West Chester and comes with a lot of good recommendations,\u201d said Hamrick.<\/p>\n

At the last council meeting, the council removed the motion to appoint former Chester County District Attorney Joseph Carroll as the temporary interim safety officer.\u00a0 Councilwoman C. Arvilla Hunt previously stated Carroll lacked the necessary qualifications to be police chief, including a lack of chief experience and an ACT 120 clearance.\u00a0 According to Hamrick, Bell does have his ACT 120 clearance, but is also lacking the proper police chief experience.\u00a0 While Bell has served as a police chief in the past, he does not meet the requirement of having been chief of a municipality the size of Coatesville or larger.<\/p>\n

City Manager Kirby Hudson stated that a search committee has been formed to in order to find and interview applicants for the full-time chief position.\u00a0 According to Hudson, Bell\u2019s appointment was an unexpected \u201cnew twist\u201d added by the council.\u00a0 Hudson stated that he hadn\u2019t expected the hire prior to Monday\u2019s executive session, but felt optimistic about the search committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are nine people made up of law enforcement and also community organizations.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s a really good culmination of people,\u201d said Hudson.<\/p>\n

Hudson was unwilling to specifically divulge the names of the members without their consent, but Hamrick confirmed that William Lambert, president of Coatesville chapter of the NAACP, and Rev. Randy Williams of the Coatesville Tabernacle Baptist Church are on the committee.\u00a0 Hamrick will serve as the council\u2019s sole representative on the committee.\u00a0 The committee will hold its first meeting on Friday.<\/p>\n

The city council will hold its next meeting Aug. 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Bell, who previously led departments in Valley Township and Cheyney University, got the nod By Jamie Richard, Staff Writer, The Times COATESVILLE \u2013 City council named former Valley Township and Cheyney University police chief Jim Bell as acting police chief at its Monday meeting. The decision to appoint Bell, 70, was an addition to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[653,24,652,654],"class_list":["post-1941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-acting-police-chief","tag-coatesville","tag-jim-bell","tag-valley-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}