Selection committee set to begin work to find the city’s next police chief
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Tuesday, July 25, 2017 (Video added, 4:30 p.m.) — Members of the city’s Police Chief Selection Committee will begin meeting to consider applications for the city’s next police chief as soon as the deadline passes Friday, Aug. 4th.
Greg Ashworth, the city’s risk manager, met Tuesday morning with committee members to review the planned review process.
Risk Manager Greg Ashworth, left, discusses the chief selection process during Tuesday’s meeting of the chief selection committee while Councilman John Kelley, center, and committee member Randy Overstreet listen.
Ashworth asked the committee members to review a list of 20 competencies that are considered important to the police chief position, and to select the five or six they believe should be the highest priority. Ashworth said he and the committee will craft a series of questions based on those competencies.
The questions the committee will pose to applicants will focus on their previous experiences and how they responded to those challenges.
“The questions will seek real-life experiences, what they have done rather than what they might do,” Ashworth said.
He said he anticipates as many as 30 applications for chief to arrive by the deadline next Friday. After the deadline, Ashworth said the committee will meet to review the applications, with the goal to narrow the field to 10 applications, which the committee will interview. The committee will forward their top three applicants to mayor for his review and final selection.
Ashworth said he expects the committee to wrap up its work before the end of the month.
The rest of the committee’s meetings will involve closed executive sessions during which the committee will do its work, Ashworth said. When the committee is ready to make its recommendations to the mayor, those recommendations will take place in an open meeting.
The committee members include:
- Risk Manager Greg Ashworth, committee facilitator
- Councilman John Kelley
- Councilman Roland Williams
- HR Director Larry Green
- City Attorney Tim Butler (non-voting member)
- Randy Overstreet, retired KSP trooper and former commander of Post 4 in Elizabethtown
- Sharon Shanks, executive director of the Nelson County Public Library
- Ward “Bubba” Wood
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