The Greenbelt City Council approved a proposed restructuring of the city police department from Police Chief James Craze at its July 11 regular meeting. Other items included dam repairs at Greenbelt Lake, playground surfacing costs and an update on the search for a replacement for retiring City Manager Michael McLaughlin. City Manager Council has been interviewing five executive search firms to assist with the search for a new city manager. They scheduled a special meeting on July 25 at 7:30 p.m. to award the work to one of these firms. These discussions have been held in executive session. Councilmember Rodney Roberts reiterated his opposition to having the discussions in executive session. William Orleans objected to the sanitized minutes of the meeting not including the names of the representatives of these firms among the list of attendees. Police Restructuring Council unanimously approved Craze’s proposed changes in response to the recommendations from the Organizational Assessment report presented by the Matrix Consulting Group in November 2013. Craze has accepted some of these recommendations and found that others would not benefit the department. The biggest change Craze is proposing to implement is to add a deputy chief position to be second in command to the chief. This person will act in the absence of the chief and assist the chief “in the development, administration, coordination and implementation of department policies, programs and activities, as well as in the general management of the day-to-day operations of the department.” While this position will be paid at new grade “Deputy Chief of Police” and will slightly increase payroll cost, Craze said that it would not increase the number of command officers. For more on this story, CLICK HERE
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