Board strips chief of hiring, firing authority

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Police chief must go to Board for hiring, firing decisions
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Eunice aldermen revoked Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot’s sole power to hire and fire police department employees.
The unanimous voice vote at Tuesday’s city meeting, attended by a capacity crowd, reverses the Board of Aldermen giving the chief appointive authority in July 2016.
The vote is in the wake of the police department experience staffing shortage and a swell of criticism on social media.
Fontenot will now make recommendations to the Board on hiring, firing and discipline. The Board must make the final decision.
Alderwoman Germaine Simpson said her decision to place the item on the agenda had nothing to do with rumors or social media.
“The authority of hiring and firing has always been with the council. Always. There is no chief in the city of Eunice that can tell you he ever had the appointive authority until we gave to the chief,” she said.
The decision to grant the chief the appointive authority was based on other municipalities, she said.
“We thought we would try it,” she said.
“At this point it would be better if you had more than one person making decisions rather than just one person,” she said.
The decision will slow down hiring police department employees, Fontenot said.
“As far as police officers being threatened and having no recourse to appeal and stuff, we have the civil service board. The civil service board is like a trial court for them. They can go up there. I can present my case. They can present their case. The civil service board makes a decision whether or not that action was taken in a just manner and fair, and for just reasons,” he said.
“I was elected first nearly five years ago and was elected because of some corruption in the police department. I was elected because of some complaints about how police officers were treating people ... I think you see the results of my actions and trying to clean up our department here today,” Fontenot said.
“We don’t nearly have the Tasing incidents that we had in the past,” he said.
“I’ve corrected some of the Gestapo actions of the police officers. We corrected that,” he said. “We don’t have complaints on the officers that we used to have.”
Fontenot said he’s never been contacted by a council member to talk about issues, which he said started with police employee overtime.
“Since I’ve been designated as the appointive authority for the police department by the council is there anything that could have, would have or can do now that would have made difference because of this one particular resolution that you all want to rescind?” he said.
Fontenot said no terminations have been appealed to the civil service board.
After some in the crowd laughed when he said he has to discipline officers, he said, “It might be funny to you, but I don’t think it is a funny business and I take my job seriously.”
Chad Andrepont, serving his first term on the Board, said he didn’t want the vote to be viewed as for or against the chief. “This isn’t a vote for who is in office right now.”
Marion “Nootsie” Sattler, alderman at-large, said he wants teamwork and suggested community meetings.
Alderman Ernest Blanchard said the vote is the hardest he will ever have to make on the Board.
And, Alderwoman Connie Thibodeaux said in the past the Board did have the appointive authority.
The police chief found support from two people, Peter Vidrine and Randall Vigee, who spoke.
Vidrine said voters approved a tax a few months ago and police have yet to receive the promised raises.
Inadequate police pay is a problem, he said.
“First, pay these people living wages. get this out of the way and then we can determine is it wages that is a big problem or are there other issues,” he said.
“We don’t have enough officers and throwing more obstacles up is not going to make things better,” he said.
Vige said the chief is doing the best job he can do with the resources he has.
But there were others critical of the police chief.
A former officer, Nicholas Cooley, said the police chief refuses to let officers do their jobs and urged the council to take away the police chief’s appointive authority.
Penny Doucet said rescinding the chief’s hiring and firing authority would restore checks and balances for the police officers.
Brenda Miller Poole complained about how the police chief handled her request for a police report.
Kim Loewer complained about the August incident at the KC Hall. The police chief said his department’s investigation did not support the reports of shorts fired at party with about 300 people in attendance.