Great Bend City Council meeting July 24, 2017 during a special meeting.
The Great Bend City Council took a big step with handling any issues between the City Administrator and the Great Bend Chief of Police at Monday’s special meeting at City Hall.
For the past couple of months, the city council has tried to sort through the police chief’s concerns about, in his opinion, misconduct with the City Administrator Howard Partington and Mayor Mike Allison.
After a 45-minute executive session with City Attorney Bob Suelter, the council passed a motion 5-3 to have Allison sign the notice of suspension and potential termination of Police Chief Cliff Couch.
Mike Allison Audio
Council members Joel Jackson, Vicki Berryman, Wayne Henneke, Allene Owen, and Mike Boys all voted to have the chief suspended while Brock McPherson, Cory Zimmerman, and Dana Dawson voted against the idea.
Dawson made it immediately clear he was against how this investigation has been handled and asked for a roll-call vote so members had to state their name with their vote.
Dana Dawson Audio
The Police Department’s turnover rate, compensation, and potential harassing workplace was brought to the surface in public at the June 5 council meeting by Chief Couch. As a 30-member staff, the Police Department is currently operating with 26 officers causing overworked and burned-out employees. Couch later went on to say he has been told by administration to keep quiet about the officer shortage and pay discrepancies. Both sides chose to hire attorneys for multiple discussions in executive session following the June 5 meeting.
On June 29, the city council approved the hiring of a firm to conduct a management and compensation study on the Great Bend Police Department.
Just reading through the notice Monday night, Couch was shocked he was being suspended with pay with possible termination.
Cliff Couch Audio
Dawson said after the meeting that to his understanding, Couch has a month to hold a hearing for a rebuttal to the council’s decision. Couch stated he would research the notice and definitely call for a hearing. Dawson also noted the hearing would take place before the same council that voted 5-3 to suspend the police chief. Dawson felt the mayor and five council members were making decisions before finding out the results of the investigation.
The notice for the suspension and potential termination claim the reasoning for the action is because of “false or reckless” accusations made by Couch and Couch’s comments that he could not work with Partington because of the differences. The notice stated the governing body lacked confidence in the police chief’s ability to operate the department because of these violations to the employee handbook.
Couch was hired in the spring of 2015 after serving as the Goodland Police Chief prior to coming to Great Bend.