{"id":2406,"date":"2012-09-21T12:05:07","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T16:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=2406"},"modified":"2012-09-21T14:52:31","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T18:52:31","slug":"reconsideration-plan-for-police-chief-hopeful-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=2406","title":{"rendered":"Reconsideration plan for police chief falls short"},"content":{"rendered":"

City manager says only two council members submitted letters of support<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Updated at 2:45 p.m. with quote from Councilman Jeff LoPrinzi<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/span><\/strong>, Managing Editor, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

An effort to get Maj. John “Jack” W. Laufer III to change his mind about becoming Coatesville’s permanent police chief did not go as planned.<\/p><\/div>\n

A plan to try and salvage a failed vote to hire a new police chief did not materialize, City Manager Kirby Hudson said this morning.<\/p>\n

Hudson had hoped to schedule a face-to-face meeting with Maj. John \u201cJack\u201d W. Laufer III, a respected veteran of the state police, asking him to reconsider the position. Laufer, one of two candidates selected by a high-profile search committee,\u00a0 was Hudson\u2019s choice to head the beleaguered department; however, on Sept. 10,\u00a0 after a contentious 3 \u00bd hour meeting, Laufer failed to gain approval and withdrew his name from consideration.<\/p>\n

Citing the city\u2019s dire financial straits, Councilwoman C. Arvilla Hunt, a vocal supporter of Interim Police Chief James Bell, was the lone dissenter\u00a0in the\u00a03-1 vote. Because three council members were absent, the vote did not constitute a majority of the seven-member body. Bell, who does not meet the qualifications for chief advertised by the city, makes about $15,000 less than Laufer would have earned.<\/p>\n

Since then, Hudson, who has said publicly that the police department would benefit greatly from Laufer\u2019s leadership,\u00a0said many council members had urged him to reach out to Laufer in hopes of getting him to change his mind.<\/p>\n

Hudson said he had planned to seek approval from Laufer to meet with him and Coatesville Det. Sean Dowds, the FOP representative, today in Harrisburg. Hudson said he and Dowds wanted to hand-deliver letters of support and express the city\u2019s plea for his reconsideration. The FOP wrote its own letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was decided Wednesday that the council members would write individual letters and get them to me Thursday,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cI only got two letters \u2026 I thought I would get at least six.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hudson said he does not know why he did not receive more, but he said \u201cit doesn\u2019t make much sense\u201d to try and get Laufer to change his mind with such minimal support. He declined to say which members submitted letters.<\/p>\n

Councilman Joseph Hamrick said he and Councilman Ed Simpson wrote the letters. “We do not know why no one else did,” Hamrick said. As for the next step, Hamrick said \u00a0he would expect to hear another “plan of action” from Hudson at Monday night’s executive session.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be prepared on Monday to discuss my Plan B with council,\u201d Hudson said.<\/p>\n

Councilman Jeff LoPrinzi said he believes a misunderstanding occurred regarding the letter-writing plan. He said he never had the opportunity to meet Laufer so he didn’t think it was appropriate for him to write a personal letter; however, based on the assessments he heard from others, he called Laufer “a fantastic candidate.”<\/p>\n

“We need to have further discussion on this,” he said, adding that he had already shared his thoughts with Council President David Collins. “I’m going to bring this up at the executive session Monday.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City manager says only two council members submitted letters of support Updated at 2:45 p.m. with quote from Councilman Jeff LoPrinzi By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, The Times A plan to try and salvage a failed vote to hire a new police chief did not materialize, City Manager Kirby Hudson said this morning. Hudson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[24,815,790,436,791],"class_list":["post-2406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-coatesville","tag-councilwoman-c-arvilla-hunt","tag-interim-police-chief-james-bell","tag-kirby-hudson","tag-maj-john-jack-w-laufer-iii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}