Great story in The Vidette today, worth the 75 cents for the article. Looks like editor Leif Nesheim has been working on the article for a couple weeks and did a fabulous job sourcing it, even got the police chief to talk to him. I don't see the article online yet (http://www.thevidette.com/) but I know the weekly only puts up small nuggets of information so you may need to go buy one to get the full article.

Yes, that was a very good article.

I hate to see the turmoil in his family and I hope the misappropriation issue is a misunderstanding.

Whoa...the headline? yikes.

For those of us who don't have time to go buy a Vidette and give it a read, how about a synopsis? And I'm really curious about the headline! Spill.

"Monte Police Chief on the Rocks"

It's a long article, but the synopsis is that he was suspended because the turmoil surrounding his divorce was interfering with his job. Before he had returned to work from that suspension, hew was given another because of a financial issue that the city is referring to the auditor.

I like Ray and I hope he can pull it together, but mostly I feel bad for his kids.

Oh.My! That is quite a headline!

I understand, LJ. I've never been much into schadenfreude.

According to the article in the Vidette today, Ray Sowers was not terminated, he was instead demoted to patrol officer. Very strange.

Its not strange at all.

In various law enforcement agencies, including some in this county, when someone is promoted from within to an appointed position (appointed being the operative word)there is usually a protection allowing that person to revert back to their last civil service position i.e. patrol, sgt, Lt, etc. I have found this is mostly to protect the appointee in the event of shifting politics such as the election of a new mayor or some other issue.

Obviously this is not the case here but as stated in TDW it appears he was not demoted for reasons of policy/law violation but of job performance (I have no personal knowledge just going off the article). As the article stated the policy/law issue is yet to be resolved and he is still under administrative leave pending the outcome of that issue.

Now if he had been hired from the outside directly to chief, such as the chiefs in Aberdeen or Hoquiam, the firing would have been final.

I still think it is strange. State law allows police departments to remove the chief police position from civil service. Hoquiam did that a long time ago. Apparently Montesano has not. You also have union issues. I know that Hoquiam's IAFF local refused to change its collective bargaining agreement to allow a Captain promoted to a non-union Assistant Fire Chief position to revert back to Captain. It took the position that once out of the union, adios. And I guess the obvious question in Ray's case is why would he want to come back as a patrolman anyway? I am sure he wouldn't.