Published: November 06, 2009 07:43 pm      

Three more merit members replaced

Change continues on police commission

Three members of Jeffersonville’s Police Merit Commission have been replaced, with the personnel changes coming just a few days after the Jeffersonville City Council removed the board’s president.

The council removed its appointment to the five-member board, Conrad Moorer, with a vote earlier this week. Since then, Tom Bodine, who was appointed by Mayor Tom Galligan, submitted his letter of resignation. Judy DeSimone said she wasn’t asked to come back to the board.

Galligan already has replaced DeSimone and Bodine with Dennis Henry and Jeff Esarey, city records show.

Additionally, R. Monty Snelling — who had been appointed by the Jeffersonville Fraternal Order of Police — had to be made again.

It appears only one member, Stuart Robertson, will remain from the original board.



MAYORAL APPOINTMENTS

Bodine sent the mayor a letter of resignation earlier this week, which The Evening News obtained from the city.

In it, he said his resignation “was prompted by the incredulous lack of judgment and ineptness displayed by the Jeffersonville City Council in their unbelievable decision not to retain [Moorer.]”

Bodine praised his fellow board members, especially Moorer, saying, “As our leader, he was as motivated as anyone I have ever worked with or for.”

He said the city’s interpretation of the 90-day deadline — which he referred to as a guideline — was “grossly inaccurate.”

“We lost out to politics and ever-increasing thirsts for power,” he said. “The dedicated and hard-working members of the Jeffersonville Police Department and the citizens of Jeffersonville are the real losers,” he said.

“I’m really upset,” he said in a telephone interview. “We were professionals trying to do a job.”

He took special exception to Councilman Keith Fetz — one of the members who voted against Moorer — who commented for a recent article in The Evening News that the merit board had been dysfunctional.

“His entire tenure as a city council member has been feckless,” Bodine said.

Fetz said he didn’t know Bodine, but that he was sorry he felt that way about his role on the council. Further, he encouraged Bodine to run for the office, noting that he would not seek re-election.

Fetz said the purpose of the board was to remove politics from the police department, but what transpired since the appointments was “more political than if we had not done anything.”

He said that the person who the board hired to take its minutes — former city employee Sharon King — routinely post critical comments about the administration and the council on Internet forums.

DeSimone said she didn’t feel the need to resign. However, she noted that she met with Galligan this week and was not asked back to the board.

Further, she said, she valued her time with the original body.

“I cannot be more proud,” she said. “I wish the new folks the very best.”

Galligan was called for this story but could not be reached.



FOP APPOINTMENTS

The Fraternal Order of Police voted on its appointments to the board earlier this week, removing Snelling but keeping Robertson.

There had been speculation by police union President Joe Hubbard that Snelling would be removed, after he filed a tort claim — which is a preamble to a lawsuit — against the city and the department because of an unrelated shooting that took place near his home.

Police fired at an alleged bank robber and bullets entered Snelling’s home, damaging furniture and barely missing his granddaughter.

“Obviously, the body felt — with the lawsuit [possibility] — that there was a conflict of interest,” said Hubbard. “We felt like we had to move in a different direction.”

Snelling commented, “I can understand why they didn’t [reappoint],” adding that he had “no hard feelings or ill-will toward them.

“I still support them to the fullest extent,” he said.

Although, he said, the facelift that the board as a whole received “speaks volumes about what’s going on.”

He said that when the council first decided that the commission would be re-established, there was no talk of replacing the entire board.

“We had a good board. Some [city officials] who said that they wanted it — really didn’t want it.”