By Russ Henderson
The Mobile Press Register
FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Two weeks after the Police Department’s second-in-command was suspended with pay, he was back at work again this week. But, according to Mayor Tim Kant, Capt. Steve Griffis is working patrol duty, not acting as a department administrator.
“I didn’t ask what he did and didn’t do. I’m trying to keep everyone in the family happy, so to speak, and this is part of that effort,” Kant said Wednesday. “Hopefully things with the Police Department will settle down soon, after a new police chief is selected.”
Griffis was placed on administrative leave May 23 and was returned to work Monday on the mayor’s orders, said interim Chief Terry Sanders. A disciplinary hearing in Griffis’ case has been set for July 2. Such hearings are customarily held within 10 days of suspension, but Griffis’ attorney asked for a 30-day extension, Kant said.
Efforts this week to contact Griffis were unsuccessful.
The mayor and other city officials would not discuss the nature of the complaints against Griffis. Active personnel cases are generally not considered public information under state law.
Griffis, a 25-year veteran of the force, has been a central figure in a recent dispute between the mayor and City Council regarding the selection of a new police chief.
Though the mayor and one councilman argued that Griffis or another longtime member of the force should be the next chief, the council conducted a nationwide search and Griffis is not among the six finalists to be interviewed June 20.
Kant said the situation has led to a division within the Police Department’s ranks between those who are upset that an internal candidate will not be hired and those who want a chief from out of town.
Those feelings were aggravated when Sanders, a former Bay Minette police chief serving temporarily until the expected appointment of a long-term chief June 22, suspended Griffis, Kant said.
“I’m just trying to keep the peace,” Kant said Wednesday.
Last month, council meetings were attended by a group calling itself “Concerned Citizens of Fairhope.”
Its members carried signs supporting Griffis’ selection as the new chief. The group apparently did not attend Monday’s regular council meeting.
Kant said he also reinstated Griffis because the department is understaffed. “It didn’t make sense to me, to have an officer sitting at home drawing a paycheck when we needed help,” he said.
The mayor sent a letter to the interim chief on May 29, directing him to return Griffis to work the next day as a patrolman, Sanders said.
Griffis will not perform his usual duties as an administrator and has been instructed not to associate with the people within the Police Department who have lodged complaints against him, Kant said.
Employee disciplinary procedures are outlined in the city’s personnel manual, which includes due process rules mandated by Alabama law. The city’s Police Department also has its own manual governing personnel matters called the Police General Orders, or PGO.
The police manual states that a disciplinary hearing “shall be scheduled promptly (generally within 10 days) by the Department Review Officer.”
General Administrator Gregg Mims has appointed Fred King, a city police investigator, as the department review officer, city officials said.
According to previous Press-Register reports, Griffis was suspended once before, in December 2001.
Griffis, who was a Fairhope police lieutenant at the time, allegedly disobeyed orders when he allowed Fred “Hollywood” Barkley to be freed on bond within an hour of his arrest on a domestic violence charge.
The arrest resulted from the alleged assault on a house guest at Barkley’s bayfront home in Point Clear. Fairhope’s personnel board denied Griffis’ appeal the following month.
Griffis was hired in 1984 and at present receives an annual salary of $73,400, city officials said.
While the interim police chief declined to comment Wednesday on Griffis’ reinstatement, he confirmed Kant’s statement that the department is understaffed.
The city has 33 sworn police officers, but those officers are spread thin over “a very large police jurisdiction,” Sanders said. The city has applied for a U.S. Department of Justice COPS grant to hire four additional police officers, he said.
The program provides 100 percent of the additional officers’ salaries and benefits for a maximum of three years. The city must retain the officers for at least one year after the grant funding ends, according to the program’s Web site.
Copyright 2009 The Mobile Press Register Inc.