Questions Linger Over Davis's Resignation

With Captain Carl Riley now in place as the highest-ranking officer of Springfield's police department due to his appointment by the Union County Prosecutor's office, and Captain Peter Davis now working with him as Davis' resignation from the position remains a point of controversy among township officials.

Disagreements and confusion are apparent on several fronts. Some officials say that the circumstances that led to Davis' resignation have been misunderstood. In addition, Davis' leadership has been debated in a series of email exchanges among committee members.

The circumstances that led to Davis' exit are a point of some confusion. Springfield Township Committee member Hugh Keffer said in an e-mail that it was unfair to say the committee declined to appoint Captain Davis as acting chief. The Committee, Keffer indicated, did not have a chance to decline or approve anything either in the closed door executive session or in the public part of the night's meeting. They did not vote on Davis's employment that night, nor did they make a motion to vote.

Keffer said there were concerns about appointing Davis as acting chief that had nothing to do with Davis or his job performance. The title "acting chief," Keffer wrote, is not a legal term and Committee members were wary about giving Davis the job without defining what the job meant.   

"[During executive session] the committee heard from our attorney who advised that before we gave the Captain an honorary title of acting chief we should first enter into a signed agreement on what that term means and does not mean; what the consequences of that designation would and would not be," Keffer wrote.

Committee member Jerry Fernandez said that naming Davis acting chief was one part of a larger conversation about Davis and the township's leadership structure.

"There were other options discussed," Fernandez said. "It's just an honorary title."

Fernandez said the committee was hesitant to promote Davis without a public safety director in place. He said the Committee discussed increasing the captain's pay and other ways of rewarding his two months in charge of the force. The Committee did not formally vote on Davis's employment that evening.

"Although invited, the Captain chose not to attend the meeting," Keffer wrote. "We do not know who conveyed to him our 'decision' but he clearly did not hear all of our discussion. By resigning before he heard from the committee, the Captain never heard the concerns of our attorney or our discussion [about] how better to compensate him for the extra work he has so admirably performed in the last two months."

Fernandez said that while he supported Captain Davis, he believed the department would have benefited from the fresh perspective a public safety director would have brought to both the police and fire departments.

"We needed someone to come in and fix the foundations of both departments," Fernandez said.

The public safety director position was created while unpopular police chief William Chisholm ran the department and was seen by most as a measure to rein him in. Deputy Mayor Bart Fraenkel said he had come to believe that Davis' leadership had made the position unnecessary.

"I feel our [police department] was moving in the right direction ever since the retirement of Chief Chisholm," Fraenkel said in an e-mail. "I acknowledge that at the time of the chief's retirement I didn't know if Captain Davis would be able to handle the job and was completely in favor of a public safety director. But I have subsequently changed my position after seeing the department's tremendous growth the past few months under the direction of Captain Davis."

Not all officials were as impressed with the way Davis handled the job, though. One notable dissenter is Springfield's Mayor Ziad Shehady. In an e-mail, Shehady said that while he believes the department had improved, he questioned the rate of improvement and did not attribute the department's recent accomplishments to Davis. He believes the mood and motivation at the department improved considerably with the absence of unpopular and controversial chief William Chisholm.

"[W]hile progress has been made and the direction reversed positively, there is no evidence or supporting facts that can attribute this 'change' to the present leadership of any one individual in the Division, to include the Officer in Charge, as opposed to a renewed motivation and 'espirit de corps' resulting from the retirements of the Chief and Deputy Chief," Shehady said in an e-mail. "I believe those retirements contributed significantly to the new energy."

In addition, Shehady said he was aware of signs of discontent about Davis's leadership within the force.

"The facts do not indicate there was stability," Shehady wrote.  "I had been contacted by several officers who were seriously concerned about the direction of the Division and there were several items that required investigations that were not being followed up on." 

Fraenkel said Shehady's claims of officer complaints were "unfounded." He asserted that statistics supported Davis's success, claiming that since Davis took over as highest-ranking officer on April 1, sick leave and overtime claims had decreased and that productivity and the number of officers taking part in training programs had improved.

"[Shehady] can continue to spin this however he wants but there is little to no substance to his comments and a review of our reports will clearly show that the [police department] is progressing at a satisfactory pace," Fraenkel wrote.

Nonetheless, officials argue that the way Davis left his position as highest ranking officer had as much of an impact as what he did on the job, and what he will do in his new position.

"Ultimately, we saw a side of the Captain that did not reflect well on him as a potential leader," Keffer wrote. "In my opinion, he acted rashly by quitting and by listening to what was probably an inaccurate version of events."

Shehady said that he welcomed Davis's decision to stay on the force, but that he would have a hard time looking past Davis's exit and return when considering him for future promotions. 

"Based on his most recent actions and conduct, I am very hesitant to appoint him chief of police," Shehady said in a phone interview.

Editor's note: some of the quotes extracted from e-mails have been reformatted or altered for grammar clarity. The re-formatting did not affect the essential meaning of the e-mails, it just made them conform to the style of a news article.

Also, the original draft of the article incorrectly stated Captain Riley's first name as Marc. His name is Carl. We regret the error.