BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
A face familiar to the Glasgow Police Department could be returning to the leadership position from which he retired a few years ago.
Monday’s agenda for the Glasgow Common Council meeting includes consideration of a municipal order appointing Guy Howie as chief of police. It would take effect April 17, just more than two weeks after the retirement of Chief Jennifer Arbogast.
Arbogast told Glasgow News 1 last month that Mayor Henry Royse had requested her resignation but then agreed to allow her to retire, and the anticipated date for that was April 1.
Former GPD Chief Guy Turcotte had stepped down from that position just as then-Mayor Rhonda Riherd Trautman was ending her term, but he stayed as an officer with the department. James Duff, who had been a GPD lieutenant, served as interim chief until Howie started the top departmental role under then-Mayor Dick Doty’s administration. Arbogast was named chief in 2019 as Howie was retiring with a plan to move back to Hopkinsville, where he had previously served as police chief and still had family members residing.
Royse re: Howie and transition
When Royse was asked by phone about his intention as to Howie’s having the job indefinitely or as an interim situation a search process occurs, the mayor said, “My intention is for him to be the chief as long as he wants to be the chief.”
Guy Howie
May 2016
Royse said he did not interview anyone else for the position.
“I did not have him in my mind when I asked [Arbogast] to resign, but when I got to thinking about, ‘How are we going to fix this?’, I decided I’ve got to have somebody – we can’t bring in somebody that’s already in the department, we can’t bring in somebody that’s never been a chief, because again, … losing that many police officers in a short period of time and having so few police on the street because of the shortage, that’s the responsibility of the mayor to fix it,” Royse said.
He said he felt like things were getting on the right track. One new officer was going to be sworn in Friday morning.
“Terry Flatt, as the assistant chief, has done an excellent job of keeping things going,” Royse said, and Flatt was at the academy Thursday for the commencement ceremony for the new officer.
Glasgow News 1 asked when Flatt, a major, was named assistant chief.
“He’s been the assistant chief for a long time under Jennifer,” Royse said, adding that he believed the title went with the rank, essentially.
Howie’s first day is to be April 17.
“You can only have one chief at a time, and so that’s the reason why we needed to let that play out. She really wanted to retire as a chief, and I honored that expectation,” the mayor said.
Flatt would become interim chief for the period between the effective date of Arbogast’s retirement and Howie’s first day, Royse said.
He said he extended the offer to Howie, subject to council approval, about two and a half weeks ago.
“He’s been a school resource officer with Christian County Sheriff’s Department, and he did not want to leave them hanging. He wanted to give them proper notice and all that, and we certainly think that’s the right thing for him to have done,” the mayor said. “I didn’t want there to be any bigger gap between the announcement and him getting sworn in than necessary. I knew where we were from the standpoint of the council, and I wanted to be sure that he gave the proper notice, and when he got that taken care of, there was no reason to hold off.”
Howie’s comments
“Debbie and I are excited to be coming back to Glasgow, and I feel very honored that the mayor has reached out to me,” Howie told Glasgow News 1 by phone.
He said he and his wife love Glasgow and still have friends here, and they’ve been back to visit on several occasions.
After retiring from the Ocala (Florida) Police Department, the North Dakota native became chief at the Hopkinsville Police Department in 2008 and retired from there in 2014.
“I went back to Florida for a year and then took the Glasgow job in ’15,” he said, adding that he had been at the Ocala department 27 years.
Despite his prior “retirements,” he said he wasn’t really ready to fully retire.
Other council agenda items
Monday’s council agenda also includes the appointment and swearing in of April Russell as interim superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works, though she has essentially been serving in that capacity since late January, when Royse fired then-superintendent Roger Simmons. Russell has continued serving as the city’s grant writer/administrator and stormwater manager.
Royse had told Glasgow News 1 earlier this month that the interview process for filling the superintendent role on a more permanent basis had started. He said Thursday afternoon he anticipates an answer from the candidate of choice by the middle of the coming week, but the city needed to formalize Russell’s interim appointment in the meantime for housekeeping purposes, more or less. She is not an engineer and thus would not meet the criteria to continue indefinitely in the position, even if she wanted the job.
Other agenda items include the second reading of an ordinance changing the city’s procurement procedures, municipal orders for three reappointments to a board and a commission, two resolutions allowing grant applications and a resolution to dispose of surplus Glasgow Fire Department property.
The full agenda and related documents are at this link.
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