{"id":2107,"date":"2012-08-28T15:56:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T19:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=2107"},"modified":"2012-10-16T17:43:45","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T21:43:45","slug":"bell-sworn-as-initerim-city-police-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=2107","title":{"rendered":"Bell sworn as interim city police chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simpson resigns as council president; city facing $2M deficit<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>

Interim Chief James Bell is sworn in by the Hon. Judge Gregory Hines as Dr. Tonya Thames Taylor serves as witness.<\/p><\/div>\n

COATESVILLE \u2013 Interim chief of police James Bell was officially sworn in for duty at Monday\u2019s city council meeting.<\/p>\n

Bell was named interim chief of police at a council meeting on Aug. 13.\u00a0 After being sworn in by the Hon. Judge Gregory Hines, members of council congratulated Bell and reaffirmed their faith in his abilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to acknowledge Chief Bell and the great job that he has been doing since his appointment and, as I stated previously, I do think he\u2019s the right man for this job at this time,\u201d said Councilperson C. Arvilla Hunt.<\/p>\n

Only a few days prior to Monday\u2019s meeting the city\u2019s police union issued a vote of no confidence for both Bell and city council.\u00a0 The union criticized the council\u2019s hasty appointment of Bell, as well as their inaction to hire new part-time police officers.\u00a0 Members of council responded to the vote of no confidence at the end of Monday\u2019s meeting; Council Vice President Joseph Hamrick stated that the council was forced to make a quick decision and could not search for both an interim chief and a permanent chief at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care what the (police union) has to say or the district attorney.\u00a0 We, as a council, have confidence in Mr. Bell or else we wouldn\u2019t have voted him in\u2026we respect our citizens and we would never jeopardize their safety,\u201d said Hamrick.<\/p>\n

Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan has previously stated that police department is understaffed and made similar remarks when contacted about the vote of no confidence.<\/p>\n

The police union also took issue with Bell\u2019s qualifications.\u00a0 The union stated that Bell does not possess Act 120 certification to serve as a police officer.\u00a0 Bell countered that he is Act 120 certified, but is lacking the Act 180 updates to keep his certification valid.\u00a0 The union also expressed concern that Bell has not served as a police chief in over a decade.\u00a0 Prior to his appointment, Bell served as the director of public safety at Cheyney University.<\/p>\n

Bell was unwilling to comment on the union\u2019s vote of no confidence, but said he did not feel that it would have a negative effect on his ability to serve as interim chief.<\/p>\n

Finance director John Marcarelli reported that the city is operating with a budget shortfall of nearly $2 million, a combination of lower-than-anticipated revenues, higher-than-expected legal fees and unbudgeted police costs, such as the severance packages for six senior officers who took an early-retirement buyout. Marcarelli recommended a transfer of $1.972 million from the city’s trust fund to close the gap.<\/p>\n

In other business, Council President Ed Simpson resigned from his position as president of city council, citing health reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not fair to the citizens of Coatesville not to have the representation here at the meetings.\u00a0 So, I will be stepping down as president and taking some time off to get my issues under control,\u201d said Simpson.<\/p>\n

Simpson stated that he would only be resigning as president and not from council itself.<\/p>\n

The council will vote on a new president at its next meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simpson resigns as council president; city facing $2M deficit By Jamie Richard, Staff Writer, The Times COATESVILLE \u2013 Interim chief of police James Bell was officially sworn in for duty at Monday\u2019s city council meeting. Bell was named interim chief of police at a council meeting on Aug. 13.\u00a0 After being sworn in by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[126,24,710,382,709,708],"class_list":["post-2107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-city-council","tag-coatesville","tag-deficit","tag-ed-simpson","tag-james-bell","tag-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107","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=2107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}