Sheffield City Hall
SHEFFIELD – Sheffield Mayor Ian Sanford said that the decision to suspend Police Chief Greg Ray was a painful, but necessary thing to do. “I met with Chief Ray this morning, Council member Gary Scales was there, and told Greg that we wanted him to resign,” Sanford told The Quad-Cities Daily. “We laid out our reasoning to him. This has been coming for some time. Honestly, The Council and Mayor have just not gotten the quality of management that we expected.” Sanford said that over the last several months, as the situation was becoming more untenable, the entire Council, a designated committee, and The Mayor had all met with the Chief to try and resolve the issues. He said Ray’s responses were unsatisfactory.
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Sheffield Mayor Ian Sanford
Sanford met with City Prosecutor, B.T. Gardner, who will handle the case before The Civil Service Board. Sanford offered Ray a severance package, which would have had to have been approved by the entire Council. He additionally offered all of his accumulated time off and vacation. Sanford said that Ray turned the offer down. With that, Sanford, as Chief Executive of Sheffield, placed Ray on administrative leave with pay until a Civil Service Board hearing could be convened to hear the matter.
“I hated to do it. Greg is a great person. But this had much more to do than a talk between Ian and Greg”, he said. “It was between The Mayor and The Chief of Police.”
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Chief Greg Ray
Ray was meeting with his lawyer as this story was being written. A statement is expected later this afternoon. The Civil Service Board hearing will be scheduled as soon as Ray appeals today’s action. He has 5 business days to do so.
Rumblings with respect to the Chief’s job performance have been circulating for a number of months.
Sheffield Fire Chief, Dewey King, has been named Acting Police Chief, in addition to his regular duties.
You may read our first story on Chief Ray’s suspension by clicking this: UPDATED – Sheffield Police Chief fired
