Posted: 12/24/07
After much debate, city will conduct background checks on four candidates
By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
The staffing of the Caledonia Police Department once again dominated discussion during the most recent city council meeting, held Monday, Dec. 17. Police Chief Randy Shefelbine expressed displeasure over a decision made by Mayor Mike Morey as to which police officer candidates would receive background checks and which ones would not.
After about 45 minutes of discussion, the council and Shefelbine arrived at common ground when a motion to conduct background checks on the top four candidates was unanimously approved.
The city has spent the past few months conducting interviews of prospective candidates after officers James Logan and Charles Rolbiecki moved on to take employment in Olmsted and Winona counties. Logan tenured his resignation last summer and the city advertised for applications to fill his position. Thirty-five persons applied for the position. Several months later, Rolbiecki announced he had accepted a job with Winona County. The city decided to utilize the pool of candidates to fill the two positions.
Mayor Morey, Chief Shefelbine, Officer James Stemper and City Administrator Bob Nelson were members of the panel that conducted the first interviews and whittled the candidate field down to the top five.
A second panel, made up of the original four plus Councilman Paul Fisch, conducted a second series of interviews, where the candidates were graded. Shortly after the second interviews, one of the candidates dropped out. The four remaining had received nearly identical scores with the top candidate garnering 415, the next with 412, and the final two tied at 410.
The top four candidates were all notified they had progressed to the background investigation phase of the hiring process. They were instructed by Patrolman KJ McGraw, who was hired by the city to conduct the background checks to complete all the requests and forms in a background packet and have it physically returned to the Caledonia Police Department no later than Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 by 4 p.m.
According to Shefelbine, only two of the packets arrived by the deadline. The other two were sent priority mail on Friday, Dec. 7, but did not arrive at the police department office until Wednesday, Dec. 12.
In the meantime, due to budget cuts, the city council decided to cut one of the positions on the police department. Morey suggested background checks only be conducted on the candidates who received the top two scores. One of the top two candidates, however did not have his background packet returned by the deadline. Shefelebine took issue with the mayor's decision.
"I felt because we were only going to fill one position at this time, we only needed to have two background checks conducted. So I instructed Kelly (Patrolman McGraw) to schedule background checks on the two candidates who scored the highest," Morey explained.
"I don't think we should accept the two packets that were late," Shefelbine said. "The requirements were specifically spelled out. If these candidates can't follow the instructions required when applying for the job, are they going to follow orders if hired?"
Shefelbine added he checked with the state Attorney General's office and was told the city could open up itself to a lawsuit if one of the candidates who followed all the requirements was not included in the background checks, while one who had not was included in the background checks.
Houston County Sheriff Doug Ely was present at the meeting. He was asked for his opinion on the matter. Ely replied if the guidelines called for the packets to be in his office by a certain time and some of them weren't, even if they were postmarked four days prior, he would not accept them.
"They were postmarked on a Friday and were to be there Monday. If I really wanted a job, I'd make sure the packet was there three or four days early," Ely said.
"The issue here is we have four good candidates," Fisch said. "There's only a couple of points separating them. I think the letter should have stated postmarked by a certain date. If I would have sent something priority mail on December 7, I would have expected it would have been there by December 10."
Fisch made a motion to have background checks conducted on all four candidates. His motion was seconded by Councilman Bob Standish and unanimously approved.
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