By CANDACE SMITH, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The police chief in the nation’s capital vowed Wednesday to stay on the job, despite a flap with the city council over his new contract.
A “disappointed” Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey spoke publicly for the first time since a sharply divided D.C. Council voted 7-6 Tuesday to give Ramsey a $25,000 a year raise. But the remainder of the package _ including pension improvements _ is not expected to move forward for at least a year.
“I’m not job hunting,” Ramsey said, though he declined to say if other jurisdictions made overtures to him. “I’m not going to brood over it. It is what it is and you just move on, that’s all.”
Ramsey is a Chicago native who spent nearly three decades with that city’s police department before coming to Washington in 1998. Mayor Anthony A. Williams wants to give him a new five-year deal, but some council members are balking. They want to see improvements in several areas, including improvements to the city’s 911 call center, a higher police visibility in the city’s neighborhoods, and a lackluster homicide closure rate.
Ramsey acknowledged the 911 center can improve, but said it is getting better at quickly answering calls for service. He says MPD is in the process of hiring a few hundred more officers. And he points out the homicide closure rate was at 32 percent this time last year, and is now 51 percent.
“When the team gets into trouble you don’t pull your quarterback, you give your quarterback a chance to perform,” Williams said Wednesday. The mayor vowed he would not give up on getting Ramsey his new contract, and said he would lobby the Council this summer on the chief’s behalf.
Williams also said that if the Council is at odds with him personally, they should not take it out on the chief.
“Why hold the chief hostage to some political problem you have with the mayor?” Williams asked.