By Ray King
With current Pine Bluff Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant due to retire this summer, Mayor Shirley Washington told Deltaplex News on Thursday she has started the process of finding a new chief for the department.
Washington said the committee will be chaired by City Council member Glen Brown Jr., who is chairman of the Public Safety Committee. Other members will be Vickie Conaway, the city’s Human Resources Director, Fred Weatherspoon, director of the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy at Camden, community activist Kamaya Seals, Josh Martinez, an associate pastor at First Assembly of God Church, former Pine Bluff Police Officer and owner of Southeast Arkansas Engravers Tom Brown, and Allison Thompson, president, and CEO of the Economic Development Alliance.
That committee will meet for the first time next week and Washington said she hoped to announce the name of the new chief by mid-June.
Washington and Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson have both declined to discuss the pending lawsuit the city has filed against the county over jail bed space fees with both saying that the time is not right yet to talk about that lawsuit.
On another subject, the Mayor said that despite Governor Asa Hutchinson halting the state-wide mask mandate, a mask mandate will remain in effect in city buildings and went on to explain why.
She was asked what needed to change before the city’s mask mandate would be dropped.
