From the Huntsville Times:

Mayor Loretta Spencer introduced an administrative reorganization plan Thursday night that would create a “superchief” over the police and fire departments and move the city’s traffic engineering division under the Urban Planning Department.

Police Chief Rex Reynolds - who I think does a great job - not only seems receptive, but actually is approving of adding a layer of bureaucracy between him and the mayor.

Reynolds said creating a superchief over police and fire departments is timely with the explosive growth Huntsville will see over the next few years with Pentagon job transfers. “This is a structure that many larger cities do,” he said.

Better planning, oversight and coordination of efforts can make the public safety services better, he said.

“As a police chief, I get so wrapped up in day-to-day operations, it would be good to have someone with oversight over the budget, grant spending and future capital needs. It’s being visionary,” Reynolds said. “I think she’s taking a bold move to structure this community with a change like this.”

I’ll give Spencer credit for taking a proactive move to help our public safety officials deal with an expected sharp increase in population.  Just drive a few miles south on I-65 to Birmingham to see what happens when elected officials allow crime to get out of hand as a result of their inaction.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 6:49 am and is filed under Huntsville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.