A change in the leadership organization is on the horizon as Susanville’s city council moves forward with creating a Public Safety Chief.
The new structure was up for consideration following the retirement of Fire Chief James Moore in August and Police Chief Ryan Cochran in November.
City Administrator Dan Newton says this new position will consolidate the administrative role of the Chiefs.
Newton emphasized this consideration was not to save the city money, as it would “increase the operational capacity” of each department with the addition of one new position for Fire and Police; this would cost the city more, however, Newton said that exact amount was not estimated at this time.
Council member Brown made it a point to address the feelings of the interim chiefs, Cpt Bollinger at PD and Hernandez at Fire, who both affirmed that having more boots on the ground would benefit their departments as Hernandez said, “the workload is not getting any lighter.”
The council unanimously agreed for staff to create a detailed job description for the Public Safety Chief position, which will return to the council for approval on December 20th.
