Opinion: ‘Trailergate’ episode erodes public trust in city hall, BPD leadership
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016, 7 p.m. — The recent incident where the owner of a stolen utility trailer found it being used by acting Bardstown Police chief Capt. McKenzie Mattingly is another incident that unfortunately chips away at the public’s trust in the leadership at the Bardstown Police Department and ultimately, Bardstown City Hall.
CAPT. MCKENZIE MATTINGLY
First, let me make it clear that I am not an expert in police policies and procedures; my comments are based solely on my take on the public’s perception of the incident based on feedback I have received. My comments are not an indictment of the officers who serve our community day-in and day-out to keep us safe.
From the outside looking in, there’s no other way to describe public perception of this incident, which I have dubbed “Trailergate” — it comes across as an abuse of the acting police chief’s leadership position by taking found property for his personal use.
No matter what kind of tortured reasoning is applied to the incident to suggest the public to “move along, there’s nothing to see here,” the whole thing reeks. At a minimum, the public sees Trailergate as a lapse in the acting chief’s good judgment; at the worst, its evidence of a “public opinion be damned, I’ll do what I want to do” mentality.
To the best of my knowledge, no laws were broken. But as anyone in leadership knows — fair or not — when you are in a position of public trust and leadership, your actions are always under public scrutiny. To his credit, Mattingly apologized to the owner for using his trailer for personal use.
When the incident was mentioned at last week’s city council meeting, it was evident Trailergate had been widely discussed among some city officials. When Councilwoman Kecia Copeland began talking about it, there was an immediate move to squelch the discussion among those who knew of it.
Copeland directed her questions to Councilman Bill Buckman — a retired Bardstown Police officer and chairman of the safety committee that deals with the city fire and police department issues.
Buckman called it “an administrative thing” — and he was correct. A Google search will reveal police departments universally have policies that dictate how they handle property that’s been stolen and recovered, seized, or found.
I’ve reviewed a number of these policies, and the norm is to try to reunite the property with its owner. The items are usually held for a time (as long as six months or a year by some departments), then disposed of by an approved means — public auction, etc.
The BPD did this I’m sure, but finding the owner was complicated by the trailer’s lack of a serial number or other identifiers. The trailer recovered at the same time as the one in question had a current registration, and because it did, the owner was identified and the trailer was returned.
I don’t know what the Bardstown Police Department’s policy regarding recovered property may be, but my guess is taking recovered property for personal use isn’t part of the policy.
As an isolated incident, it was only a trailer. And yes, if Mattingly hadn’t used it, the owner may have never have seen the trailer to recover it. But Trailergate is one in a string of incidents that taken as a whole, damage the public’s view of the leadership in City Hall and the police department.
The list of incidents begin with the mayor’s reorganization of the police department earlier this year and the “shit storm” that resulted; the “now-you-see-it, now-you don’t” Facebook page that is largely believed to have disappeared after public comments were critical of how a recent suicide was handled is another. We can’t overlook former Chief Rick McCubbin’s departure (and other officers’ departures). Then add the end of the body camera program, the firing of Tom Roby, and the cut-off of communication with members of the media — to name a few.
It was ironic that Copeland’s question about Trailergate led to referring the matter to the next evening’s safety committee meeting — a committee meeting that was unable to legally discuss any topic not already on its published agenda.
The quarterly safety committee meeting had been canceled, which made last Wednesday’s meeting a special-called meeting. State law has very specific rules for special meetings; one of those requires the agenda to be published at least 24 hours in advance. The published agenda cannot change without triggering another 24-hour notice period. In order to have legally discussed the trailer issue, a revised agenda would have been required, requiring another 24-hour notice period.
Obviously, due to these constraints there was no mention of Trailergate at the committee meeting. However, Mattingly did give members of the media a handout on his perspective of the facts of the incident, which you can read here.
The issue doesn’t appear to be going away soon. On Friday, WAVE TV reported that Copeland called on the mayor to fire Mattingly.
With two debates featuring the 16 city council candidates taking place Tuesday night, I anticipate we will see lively discussions that will touch on this incident and many others.
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