Thursday night was a sad time for Peachtree City as the City Council unanimously voted to send three of the Police Department’s finest officers — officers who had served this community diligently and faithfully for many, many years — packing.
This only highlights the growing trend that has surfaced with the arrival of our new city manager that numbers-crunching and organization charts are far more important than dedicated city employees who give their all for Peachtree City.
Council and the manager hardly blinked as they threw some of the city’s best and most experienced officers under the bus for the sake of making an organizational flow chart look better.
This comes on the tail of another betrayal of these same officers when the department’s highly experienced major was forced out and a new assistant chief was brought in from Florida instead of rewarding one of the department’s own for their years of excellent service.
What’s even worse with this restructuring of the department is that none of the junior officers can now have any confidence that their positions will not be the next ones whacked, nor is there much chance of upward mobility.
The lieutenants, who by the way are already dealing with a full plate, will be asked to do even more and the city will not have as many officers on the street because they will be taking care of the added administrative duties.
Morale, which has already been suffering under the cloud of this reorganization, will get even worse and I would not be surprised if other highly qualified officers look for work with other departments or agencies where their work is more respected and appreciated.
I guess we’ll just sit back and see how this plays out. Maybe it will be as effective as dumping over 20 dedicated public works employees and contracting out the city’s landscaping.
Just look around the once well-manicured Peachtree City and see how well that turned out.
James V, Kelso III, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.)
Peachtree City, Ga.
