Chief's job keeps civil service protection

Grand Coulee Mayor Chris Christopherson has lost his bid to remove the police chief job from Civil Service Commission protection.

He has stated it was his goal to remove the police chief from under the Civil Service Commission.

He made that official last Tuesday night when he asked the city council to support this effort.

His proposal failed 4-1 as the council rejected the idea, questioning his reasons for seeking the change.

Christopherson reasoned that no other city department heads — the clerk, city foreman — fell under civil service protection. But the council majority determined that removing the chief from CSC protection put too much power in the hands of a single person — the mayor.

Hunt had been under the CSC since his hiring over 30 years ago. He retired in September.

The mayor has had a running battle with the police department, at one time forcing Hunt to seek his own attorney.

In one instance he had ordered Hunt to work five eight-hour shifts in the week because, he stated, the chief needed to be available in case someone wanted to see him. Before this, Hunt had worked four 10-hour shifts.

Meanwhile, the city clerk was allowed to work four 10-hour shifts.

Councilmember David Tylor made the motion to keep the chief under civil service. The lone dissenter was Councilmember Erin Nielsen.

The discord moved over to the Civil Service Commission, supposedly beyond political strings, when the three members attempted to start advertising for a new police chief.

The advertisement had been drawn up by the CSC and was supposed to start on Oct. 22, but at the last minute the mayor cancelled it.

“That was illegal for him to do,” Civil Service Commission Chair Alan Cain contended. He said he was going to start the advertisement next week, after the CSC sought the advice of an attorney.

The mayor had stated that parts of the material used in the ad infringed on his authority and told the commission that at its Oct. 22 meeting.

Cain said the commission would likely hire its own attorney.

The mayor had previously asked the CSC to handle the hiring of a new police chief, and by law is restrained from interfering. The CSC is handling the advertising and testing of the applicants and will present the top three candidates to the mayor for his decision.

Another rub developed when Mayor Christopherson had stated that the salary range for the new police chief position would be between $6,200 and $7,200 a month.

At the time, one officer responded and said that pay range would make the chief the lowest paid officer in his own department. Officers make more than that because they regularly turn in a lot of overtime.

The CSC had planned to advertise the range as $6,600 to $9,000 a month, but indicated in a meeting Monday that they planned to change this to an amount not yet determined.