Montgomery votes to keep police department
It is not often the public applauds the Montgomery City Council, but that is what more than 30 citizens did when the council voted to keep the Montgomery Police Department and hire a police chief.
The vote came at Monday’s regular council meeting. Councilors Bob Forcelle, Dennis Lambrecht, Brad “Butch” Kubes, and Mayor John Grimm voted in favor of keeping the local force instead of eliminating it and contracting with Le Suer County. Councilor Mick McGuire cast the only dissenting vote.
Grimm began the discussion by reminding the crowd what his job as Mayor meant.
“My job as a public official is to support the wishes of the majority of the people who pay taxes here,” he said. “We recently sent out a questionnaire with the water bill, and that gave people the chance to state whether they were in favor of going with a new police chief and the existing police department, or going with the sheriff’s department. That questionnaire came back heavily in favor of hiring a new police chief.”
Before the vote, McGuire commented that he would vote against keeping the Montgomery Police Department. He said contracting with the sheriff’s department was, “by far” the best option, both financially and protection-wise for the city.
“I feel this was an opportunity for Montgomery to step forward and take the lead in our county. Just because you do things a certain way doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way to do things. I think consolidating law enforcement with the county that we could have set the stage with Le Sueur County and have been leaders.”
McGuire said he felt there was a lot of misinformation presented to the public and that people didn’t understand or want to understand the issue. He called the surveys “worthless” and predicted that the issue would return in the future to other Montgomery City Councils.
“I feel we had a real opportunity to move forward to do things maybe a little different and a little bit better,” he said.
City Administrator Brian Heck said the city will immediately begin posting for a new chief and expects to have finalists by September.
For more, including the comments from the resident survey, pick up the print edition.
