Larry Wallace
The Cleveland City Council voted Monday to give hiring and firing power to the five city department directors rather than City Manager Janice Casteel.
The panel also voted to abolish the employee appeals process, saying an employee who is fired or aggrieved can take their appeal to court.
An attorney will be hired to hear five pending employee appeals. Under a recent court ruling, the city manager would not be able to hear those cases.
Councilman Richard Banks said he wanted to give new Police Chief Mark Gibson the power to terminate employees "when everybody in the community says get rid of them." The police force has been hit with incident after incident of embarrassing employee misconduct.
It was suggested that all the other department chiefs get the same authority. Councilman Bankssaid, "We have five good department heads, who should be able to hire and fire employees."
City Manager Casteel told the council, "The department heads and I have a common goal of getting people who are not working off the payroll, so thank you very much."
Vice Mayor George Poe said he gets asked why people in city government who have gotten into trouble keep getting paid by the city.
Chief Gibson was sworn into office with a large number of family members present.
He was praised by former TBI Director Larry Wallace, who has been working as a consultant to try to straighten out the police department.
Mr. Wallace told the council that a better promotions policy is in place and there is a move toward making the department more diverse. There were 83 people at a diversity open house.
All officers now have body cameras and all cars have working GPS systems.
Officials said police headquarters should be outfitted with bullet-resistant glass by the end of the year.
Mr. Wallace said the patrol needs to be beefed up to 10 officers when funding is available. It now stands at eight.
He said a second SRO is needed at Cleveland High School.
The council asked Mr. Wallace to stay on as a consultant to help the city with additional problem areas.
Three new Cleveland Police officers were sworn in - including two who came from the Chattanooga Police Department and one from McMinn County. They are Michael McCoy, Sean Bulow and Joshua Hodge.
Police awards were presented to Jody Musselwhite, Nick Lorenzano, Mark Darnell, Matt Landolt, Mike Ricker and Brian Montgomery.
City Manager Janice Casteel