ST. JOHNS, Mich. — Monday night's meeting of the St. Johns Board of Commissioners was packed and one of the key topics of discussion was Police Chief David Kirk, who was reinstated last week after six weeks of paid leave prompted by what City Manager Dave Kudwa described as "staff concerns."
"He was put on leave on April 14, I believe," Kudwa said. "We decided to put him on leave just to create some space in the department so we could better evaluate what was going on in the department."
Kudwa said it came after a staff satisfaction survey.
"In January, we identified some areas that we wanted to explore further within the department. We looked at things like policy and procedure, implementation. We looked at communication, conflict management, those kinds of things," Kudwa said. "We realized that we need to spend some time on that and spend some resources on that."
Kudwa said the leave was not disciplinary.
"We just felt like that was the best way to create an environment where we could get in and talk to everybody, and I think sometimes taking a step back like that is the best way to do that, so that's the approach we took," Kudwa said. "We think it's been a very positive process. We really appreciate the officers and the command team, the police's administrative team and Chief Kirk for all the time that they've spent working with our team to really figure out what we can do best and what resources we can bring in."
For the six weeks that Kirk was on paid leave, while the city attorney interviewed city employees, Lt. Eric Verlinde was the acting chief.
Now that Kirk has been reinstated, some city residents are claiming they were not aware Kirk was ever on administrative leave, including the St. Johns school district.
In an email, St. Johns Public Schools Superintendent Mark Palmer wrote, in response to a question from a St. Johns resident, that the district was not made aware that Chief Kirk was put on leave. Although, he added that "during that time we did not see any reduction in the usual great service from SJPD."
St. Johns Mayor Eric Hufnagel said he did not know that the district did not know.
"I don't know if there's anything standard per say, but I think it's appropriate to reach out to partners to let folks know when there's a change in status of anybody, whether it's the city manager or your recreation department, whoever is interfacing with different partners, I would think that you would want to communicate that," Hufnagel said.
Kudwa said the city did not send out a press release about Kirk's leave.
"When we put chief on leave, we let our staff know, we let—I believe the county administrator know," Kudwa said. "At the time, acting Chief Verlinde had spoke with other agencies in the area to let them know. So, that happened right after Chief Kirk was put on leave."
Chief Kirk returned to work on June 6.
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