City Commissioners vote to discipline police chief

Whether Chief Billy Smith will be terminated, suspended, or just disciplined is up to City Manager Taylor Brown

By Cindy Jo Ayers

The Trenton City Commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday, Oct. 26, to discipline Police Chief Billy Smith after an investigation by the city’s personnel committee found him to be “unprofessional.”
Several concerned citizens, as well as former Trenton Police Department employee Lonnie Wilkerson, attended the special meeting to hear the outcome of the investigation.
The investigation into Chief Smith’s actions started in mid-September after Wilkerson presented the board with a petition calling for the police chief to be fired. The petition was signed by over 300 Trenton residents.
At the start of last week’s meeting, Trenton City Attorney David M. Lang told the commissioners that the police chief serves at the pleasure of the board. He also informed them that the employee handbook directed them to proceed by deciding if the police chief should be disciplined or not. Since the commission voted that discipline was appropriate, the form of discipline is now left up to City Manager Taylor Brown, according to the employee handbook.
At press time, Brown was still considering if the findings from the investigation warranted Chief Smith being terminated or suspended from his position with the City of Trenton, or if another form of discipline should be given.
According to the employee handbook, if Brown decides termination or suspension is in order, Chief Smith can decide to appeal his decision to the city commissioners and they can overturn or change the discipline that Brown chooses.
Lang explained that any form of discipline other than suspension or termination cannot be appealed by Chief Smith.
Despite having had the investigation report for three days, Commissioner Tim Kinsey said last week that he did not feel like he had enough time to go through the report as he would have liked before making a decision.
All the commissioners received the report prior to the meeting, and several came to the meeting prepared to comment on the findings.
Commissioner Marcia Hellams said, “There are a lot of things in the report that are alarming to me.”
Commissioner Arlene Wilks said that she felt the personnel committee had done a good job on the report. Similarly, Commissioner Randy Rutter thanked the committee for the hard work they had put in on the report saying, “I know it was a difficult situation.”
Chief Smith and his attorney Ray Earl Thomas were given a chance to respond to the findings in the report. Thomas told the commissioners he did not have a lot of time to compile a response and went on to say that the findings of the report may have been skewed in the way the facts were gathered. He also pointed the out good evaluations the police chief had been given in the past by former City Manager Jared Ottenwess.
After some discussion, the commissioners decided to go through the list of 20 different complaints covered in the report and presented by the committee after their six-week long investigation.
Chief Smith, with his attorney at his side, stood before the board and responded to each and every complaint one by one.
After several hours of what was at times grueling questioning, the commission voted on a motion made by Commissioner Hellams and seconded by Commissioner Wilks which called for some disciplinary action to be taken. In a 5-0 vote the commissioners unanimously approved the motion. The city manager was contacted on Monday of this week, and at that time he had not made a decision on what discipline was appropriate and could not give a time frame for when the decision would be made.