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The city's newly appointed police chief said he wants to heal divisions within the department and reach out to communities to tackle perceptions of crime in Chattanooga.
On Tuesday, Mayor Ron Littlefield appointed 22-year department veteran Bobby H. Dodd as police chief, replacing interim Chief Mark Rawlston, who has held the post since the March 30 retirement of former Chief Freeman Cooper.
Chief Dodd said he had not decided on his choices for support staff and would outline other goals for the department publicly in coming weeks, along with plans for meeting with various community representatives to address crime concerns.
The City Council must approve the mayor's pick, but at least one member present at the appointment said he would support Chief Dodd.
"He knows the city more so than someone coming in who would have to learn the city," Councilman Russell Gilbert said.
The new chief will look to the council for help soon. He mentioned a top priority as being the department's manpower situation. Estimates show the department now is 60 officers understaffed, and more than 40 are eligible for retirement.
Part of the mayor's proposed budget is to hire between 20 and 25 new officers over the next year.
Chief Dodd also said there would be a brief transition period, and that he plans to "heal wounds" within the department and reach out to those who may have supported another candidate for chief.
"Any time you have three candidates for a job like that and it went on for as long as it did, you're going to have some division," Chief Dodd said.
Along with Chief Dodd, Chief Rawlston and Assistant Chief Mike Williams were considered the frontrunners for the job.
Fraternal Order of Police local chapter Vice President Sgt. Craig Joel said officers are happy that the mayor chose a chief from within the department.
Mr. Gilbert also pointed to a recent internal poll of Chattanooga police conducted by the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers in which participants chose Chief Dodd as the top candidate.
Mr. Littlefield had told the council he was considering some outside candidates and a retired military officer along with the internal candidates. On Tuesday, he would not divulge the names of those considered for the job other than Chief Dodd.
Interim Chief Mark Rawlston has submitted his paperwork for retirement, and his last day with the department is July 15.
As a Soddy-Daisy resident, Chief Dodd would be one of an estimated 58 percent of police who no longer will be allowed to use their take-home cars because they live outside city limits. The move is a cost-saving measure put forth by the City Council for the 2010-2011 budget.
Mr. Littlefield said he took the police poll under consideration but ultimately other factors determined his choice.
One selling point mentioned by the mayor is Chief Dodd's support of a consolidation of the police department and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office as part of overall city-county consolidation efforts pushed by the mayor's office.
Sgt. Joel said the continued focus on consolidation made a national search for an outside candidate irrelevant and that many union members oppose department consolidation, which, he said, offers no benefit to policing.
Under previous proposals by the mayor, consolidation of the two departments would place city police under administrative control of the Hamilton County sheriff.
CHIEF BOBBY DODDAn Army veteran, Chief Dodd started with the police department in 1986, left for 18 months in 1988, then returned. He has worked in the patrol division, both as an officer and as head of the downtown precinct. He's also worked in internal affairs and as a special operations commander in criminal investigations, where he later became assistant chief over the investigations division before his Tuesday appointment to police chief.
The mayor said Chief Dodd's length of remaining service was another factor in his decision.
"It was a factor, frankly, that Chief Dodd was younger," he said.
The 46-year-old chief isn't eligible for retirement for another three years and has six years left until he reaches the full Deferred Retirement Option Plan benefit.
The DROP benefit contributed to the retirement of former Chief Cooper, who had reached 28 years of service in March. The benefit is an early retirement incentive that pays a portion of the retiree's pension early and reduces the monthly pension payment after retirement accordingly. If retirees do not take the DROP, they receive a higher monthly payment after retirement.
The mayor recommended that the city hire Chief Cooper on a contract basis after he retired, but the council voted against the measure.
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