Politics & Government

Mayor: Police Chief Pick Coming By Next City Council Meeting

City reviewed roughly 140 applications during the months-long search process.

Mayor Kathleen Weaver said Tuesday that she likely would announce her pick for Darien’s police chief by the .

The city, with the aid of a , reviewed applications during the summer from roughly 140 candidates for the job, which has been vacant since at the end of May.

“The committee was involved in assessing all of the applications and recommending some candidates to be interviewed,” Weaver said. The committee is no longer involved in the selection process, she said.

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After Weaver presents her recommendation, the will vote on whether to approve the appointment. 

The city will eliminate one of the two deputy chief positions at the end of the process.

Find out what's happening in Darienwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“(W)e are a little management-heavy at this point, and this is the right thing to do to reduce the police department budget,” Weaver said in June.

If the city does not promote one of the deputies — David Skala or John Cooper — she said one of them would return to sergeant rank.

Before announcing June 1 it would that would include both internal and external candidates, the city presented two other proposals for handling the police chief role.

On May 13, the city released a proposed ordinance that would have , transferring the department’s administrative duties to City Administrator Bryon Vana.

The City Council postponed voting on that ordinance after residents about the proposal at the May 16 meeting.

Vana released a memo May 19 detailing a second proposal that would  to chief. Under that scenario, Vana would have assumed the same administrative duties as he would have under the first proposal.


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