Mayor Robert Smith offered a few more specifics Thursday on an action plan meant to save Police Chief Oscar Lewis’ job, but most of what the plan outlines remains under wraps, apparently even from the city council.
Earlier this week, Smith told The Dispatch Lewis implementing the action plan would be a five-month process. On Thursday, the mayor said the plan included specific benchmarks Lewis must reach within certain time frames, and the council would be apprised of the chief’s progress monthly.
“One of the councilmen asked if five months was enough time,” said Smith, a former teacher and education administrator. “I said that in education, when you give a teacher an improvement plan, they may only have three or four months.”
Councilmen approved the action plan for Lewis in executive session Aug. 15, weeks after a consultant the city hired to study the police department leveled a scathing review of Lewis’ leadership and recommended the chief’s termination.
Smith said the benchmarks outlined in the action plan track with addressing the consultant’s criticisms — specifically the need for Lewis to work more cooperatively with Assistant Chief Fred Shelton and communicate better with other officers, in general — but he continues to veil other specifics of the plan as a personnel matter protected from public disclosure. He noted Lewis has already met one of the benchmarks of the plan but offered nothing more.
“These goals and objectives are achievable, and I have full confidence he will meet the goals and objectives of his action plan,” Smith said. “… We appreciate the job he is doing, but anybody can improve at their job.”
At least for two councilmen — Joseph Mickens of Ward 2 and Stephen Jones of Ward 5 — the talk of timelines and benchmarks was news to them.
“He may have had a timeline and benchmarks in his head, but he never presented those to us, not even in executive session,” Jones said.
Mickens said when Smith presented the plan on Aug. 15, he didn’t even allow councilmen to keep copies.
“He showed us the plan, and then he took it right back up because he said he didn’t want it getting out to the media,” Mickens told The Dispatch on Friday. “We didn’t even really have time to look at it and study it. … We didn’t agree on no timeline. I don’t know where that came from.”
Stability
Regardless of disagreements on what the plan says and what timelines are attached, Smith and the councilmen all cited stability within Columbus Police Department as a reason to try to keep Lewis at the helm.
Councilmen in January hired K.B. Turner, a Columbus native who chairs the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Memphis, for a six-month contract to study the police department. At the time, CPD’s roster had plummeted to 44 officers — less than two-thirds of the 67 officers budgeted for the department — and Lewis had recently made a comment during a press conference crediting biblical “End Times” prophecy for the city’s uptick in crime.
During Turner’s consultation, recruitment efforts swelled CPD’s ranks to nearly full-staff, though Turner remained critical of how Lewis led the department. In a letter to the editor to The Dispatch, he said Lewis was a “good person” but that didn’t make him a good police chief and he believed a leadership change was necessary.
But with Lewis, who was hired in February 2016, less than two years into his tenure and with CPD’s history of three chiefs and two interim chiefs since 2011, the mayor and council said they had no appetite for another leadership change if it could be avoided.
“We valued Dr. Turner’s opinion very highly, and he did a great job with his (consultation),” Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin said. “I do think there were some things he didn’t consider because we live here every day. If we let Oscar go, we’re right in the same place we were (six) years ago.”
Jones told The Dispatch neither the mayor nor council had officially discussed getting rid of Lewis “at any point,” and he was content with a wait-and-see approach.
“If police start leaving again, I think it will definitely be time to make a change,” he said. “Now, I’m already seeing a stronger police presence (because of the new officer hires). But if it gets to where I can’t see that presence anymore in the community, that will be an issue for me.”
Potential retirement
Lewis, who began working in law enforcement in 1994, told The Dispatch earlier this week he will become eligible to retire in the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System at some point in 2018, though he wouldn’t specify the date.
In fact, all Lewis has said publicly about the action plan, or his future at the department, was through a prepared statement that he understood the plan and would follow its recommendations.
Smith said Thursday he and Lewis had never discussed his possible retirement. He also denied the five-month timeline of Lewis’ action plan had anything to do with keeping the chief employed until his retirement eligibility kicked in.
“There’s no guarantee anybody will stay,” Smith said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s the chief. And I hope he stays the chief.”
Gavin said, even once Lewis can retire next year, he hopes that doesn’t happen.
“I tend to think he would stay on long-term,” Gavin said. “He’s still a young guy, and he’s got a lot to offer.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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