Chief Robert Metzger a tyrannical union basher or a no-nonsense leader?
I received an email from a reader pointing out an article in today’s Blade which relates to some of the discussion we recently had here on the disciplinary hearing regarding Sgt. Robert Cowell, it was stated there was a previous disciplinary hearing, but until I read, Discipline creates rift in Sylvania Township police force I was not aware of what it was concerning:
Oct. 22, Officer Ron Dicus, the president of the department’s patrolmen’s union, was suspended for three days without pay for insubordination for the length of his mustache.
I recommend reading the article in full, while it does include quotes from the trustees and from a few of the officers involved, I know quite a few of the readers of this blog do come from Sylvania, so here’s your chance to weigh in on your opinion of what’s happening. Do you think that this is:
“You’ve got a very strong police chief, and you’ve got a couple of very strong officers who’ve done what they wanted to do for a long time,” Trustee Carol Contrada said. “They’re locking horns.”
Ms. Contrada said the department is struggling with the transition from a rural department to a modern, urban police force. The police chief, she said, is trying to enforce a new set of policies to update operations. But the new policies aren’t always popular, she said.
“Yeah, I think that the police chief has ticked off a lot of people,” she said.
“Were they people that any chief would have ticked off? I don’t know. Maybe.”
Or:
“Every time someone’s around one of the union reps, it seems like that’s who he goes after,” said former police officer Jamey Harmon. “He doesn’t care what the union says, it’s his department.”
“This is classic union bashing,” Sergeant Cowell said in an interview Oct. 31. “Everything that they have come up with is completely ridiculous.”
Or is it something else? What is clear is there is there are problems between the Chief and the Union, while the article makes it clear this has not affected any issues related to safety in the Township, employee morale can effect job performance.
From a former reporter for the Daily Telegram in Adrian, Michigan when contacted in reporter’s research of Chief Robert Metzger – the chief in question. The reporter, Matt Crossman, is now an award winning reporter for the Sporting News. He stated:
“Robert Metzger’s name is a blast from the past all right, but I won’t be much help, if any. I wasn’t close enough to the situation to really know anything of his management style. And it’s been, what, eight years, so any details have left me.
I imagine you found columns I wrote on two incidents, one being a
shooting he tried to bury and another being a big underage drinking
party at the house of a lieutenant that he tried to bury. After those
columns came out, he didn’t like me very much.
If I recall correctly, he eventually got fired, but I can’t remember
what for. It seems to me there was a delay between his last day at the office and his final termination. I can’t remember if it was one thing or a series of things. I think a guy named Dave Clark was the reporter on those stories. You might want to look for his byline.
His hiring was very controversial, too. I wrote a bunch of stories about
how the city was being secretive about it. Those came out in the spring of 1997, I think. Might have been 1996. It sounds to me like Adrian, by being secretive, missed the same things that Sylvania eventually missed.
You might want to look for a guy named Tom Ray. He was an LT at the time, and I think he might know some details. I have no idea where he is (I bet he’s retired), but I imagine he still lives in Adrian. I think he was a lifer.”
November 13th, 2008 at 4:33 pmI did some quick googling…
The story of the mustache has gotten some coverage, all over, including California, just a few of those links; Lost in Lima, it was the “Water Cooler Story of the Day” on WTOP, In the Line of Duty, American Mustache Institute.
An interesting side story that includes both Metzger and Cowell, from 2007.
Also from 1999 – an interesting quote attributed to Chief Metzger:
There is also this story from Huron, Michigan, Pastor Says Alleged Police Assault Motivated By Race from 2003.
In Zeeland, he suggested a switch to 12 hour shifts for police officers.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:16 pmRe: “There is also this story from Huron, Michigan, Pastor Says Alleged Police Assault Motivated By Race from 2003.”
The public should read this. Here’s representation of the style of leadership Chief Metzger adheres to, yes – he’s on a power trip and – yes – I would say Chief Metzger does know how to “tick people off.”
Now see the below related article taken from the News-Herald in Huron Township (Letter to the Editor):
POLICE CHIEF OUGHT TO BE EMBARRASSED
To the Editor: This is in response to your March 31 story “New Life pastor found guilty.”
The court’s decision is nonsense. How is refusing to leave your own premises obstruction? Obstruction requires an affirmative act.
All Rev. C.L. Johnston did was refuse to act.
Obstruction is used as a catchall charge when police do not have anything else to charge someone with. Johnston shuld sue them for trepassing.
Huron Township Police Chief Robert Metzger obviously is on a power trip of some sort. The $20,000 in fees and overtime is something that could have been avoided by issuing a temporary occupancy permit for the part of the building that was finished.
The church could have obtained portable toilets while the construction was ongoing. This was a waste of tax dollars over a non-issue.
Metzger ought to be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Steven Thomas
Long Beach, Calif.
The more you look, the more you find. The “power trip” is a patterned behavior – it would appear other administrations caught onto that more quickly than your Sylvania Township (More to come).
It just further asks the question, as some in the public and in the police department, have pointed out – How thorough was the background check? Who did it? The public wants answers from the trustees.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:42 amThe below commentary is in response to this Blade article: Article published Thursday, November 13, 2008, Discipline creates rift in Sylvania Township police force.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081113/NEIGHBORS05/811120413/-1/NEIGHBORS
A police department is a work environment like no other. Police officers need to trust their administration and management. It is imperative to the safety of both the officer and the community.
An officer should not be placed in a threatened position of having to constantly second-guess his/or her actions. Response time, judgment calls are often made in the heat of the moment; it can save a life; it can end a life; it comes with the territory.
Therefore, an officer should not be made to function in a hostile work environment within the walls the police department as he/or she protects, at times, a hostile work environment outside those walls.
In studying the application for Sylvania Township’s police chief and in going forward with the selection of that police chief, it takes more than a few spoken words with a few chosen former officers of that police chief to determine appropriate leadership. He cannot just “seem” experienced; he cannot just “seem” to be willing to tackle leadership problems but, rather, those things should be confirmed.
They should be confirmed in a professional, credentialed manner to the very best of your ability or your selection becomes arbitrary, uninformed, and given to chance.
If not done responsibly, if done because he is the friend of a friend, because he happened to interview well and; therefore, he “seemed” like the right choice, if not done finally with the guided merit of a proper background check, then the selection process shortchanges the “quality” of your selection, it shortchanges your law enforcement officers and, ultimately, it shortchanges the community that you were entrusted to care for.
To the Sylvania Township Trustees: You seemed to have begun the process responsibly. You paid, reportedly, somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 out of taxpayer money for the hiring of former Deputy Chief of the Toledo Police Department, Nate Ford, a police consultant, to study police operations in the Sylvania Township Police Department.
He found problematic areas of low-morale trickled down from upper management. In his report he awarded high compliments to the law enforcement officers and the public employees of Sylvania Township.
He stated, as documented in Sylvania Township Today’s quarterly newsletter, October 2006: “…Their honesty and candor and true desire to improve their department were unremarkable. “ He furthermore stated: “…the employees of the Sylvania Township Police Department are loyal employees who appreciate their position in public service and are committed to providing the best possible service to the residents of the community.”
The article furthermore quotes Mr. Ford as stating, “…the strength of the township police department is its employees. I can’t emphasize how impressed I was with the quality of the individuals employed by this department.”
Furthermore, you spent approximately $25,000 for the PAR group of Chicago in its hired search for the right candidate, the right chief to lead these above-mentioned “quality” people. Taxpayer money again, money well spent, one would hope.
The puzzling turn in your heavy-weighted responsibility came when Nate Ford, a professionally credentialed investigator, offered to do a background check on the finalist, Chief Metzger. He thought it would take approximately 2 days to complete a professional, therefore, thorough background check. He even offered other options, other credentialed investigators in an honest effort to avoid bias.
After all the taxpayer money spent in the search for just the right leader to complement the many years of exemplary work by your police officers and public employees, despite their endurance of multiple police chiefs in multiple years—this is where you apparently decided to drop the ball.
This is where trustee Pam Hanley decided she had the professional credentials to do an impartial background check on her finalist. Pam Hanley, who readily states in her Sylvania Township bio—“retired from the insurance industry upon the arrival of their first born child and 24years later re-entered the “work force” as a part time Realtor. “
Now—you will get no argument against a mother’s work, the energy and intelligence it takes to raise four fine children goes undisputed. Our hats are off to you.
However, to qualify you, yourself, as someone professionally credentialed to do a background check on someone who is, hopefully, going to be a credible, trusting, morale-building leader for this much deserved department for many years to come—raises questions of why?
Why, after all the money spent up to this point, did you feel you were the one to do this?
Accountability goes both ways. Respect goes both ways.
The Blade article refers to the trustees categorizing officers as “bad apples”—those officers have been faithful, committed law enforcement officers to your community long before your trusteeship, long before anyone thought to bring Chief Metzger’s subjective and discriminatory leadership into their department.
Therefore, to suddenly intimate that these men are renegade law enforcement that need a “no-nonsense leader to reform them” does not jive with their past records, does not jive with their contribution to law enforcement in Sylvania Township, does not jive to their earned respect from this community, does not jive.
These men are people with careers they cherish, people with good-standing reputations. They are not “bad apples” to be tossed out lightly and randomly after half-a-lifetime spent in public service as peacekeepers of Sylvania Township.
With the sudden rash of union grievance (like no other time); the sudden rash of early retirements, one of which was forced; the sudden rash of multi-officers looking for jobs in other departments—with this never having happened before in the history of STPD to this degree, who is to say, really, that the chief himself is not the “bad apple”?
In neglecting a professional, fully credentialed background check for the highest level of leadership in a police department, especially based on Nate Ford’s report, which again, designated primary morale problems originating with upper management, you owed it to the men and women who work in the Sylvania Township Police Department to go that one last extra mile.
Instead, you (trustees) decided he “seemed” like a leader. You in particular, trustee Pam Hanley decided you were “…not going to subject him to a background check.”
And—then—apparently, you did not.
In a police department, a chief of police with questionable credibility that precedes him is an issue. This chief’s background is riddled with questionable credibility.
A review of the archives of both the Daily Telegram in Adrian, Michigan and the Herald-News in Huron Township, Michigan will lead anyone who knows how to use the Internet down a path of reasonable concern, enough to raise a major eyebrow and question your decision-making.
This man’s leadership services were no longer wanted in Adrian, Michigan and, finally, in Huron Township, Michigan, the administration there was offering only a limited, probationary, one-year contract as they questioned his motive and methods in the termination of a public employee.
Sylvania Township—if you believe in your right to question. If you believe government, no matter how small or large, should be held to accountable, if you believe your public servants have the right to work in an environment that promotes trust and mutual respect, if you believe in the ideals of peacekeeping and the merit of law enforcement in your community—then it is your right to question.
Therefore, Sylvania Township Trustees—where is the full background check done on this police chief?
Sylvania Township community—this is a matter of public record.
Layers of newsprint and negative articles about good police officers, left undisputed because of a biased press, deserves, once and for all, a full and public disclosure.
Where is the background check for Chief Robert Metzger?
November 15th, 2008 at 6:40 pmGood Will, you are right!
Where is the background check on Chief Metzger? This actually is public record; it is paid for with taxpayers’ dollars, so any taxpayer should have the right to see it upon request under the Freedom of Information Act.
However, with a chief of police like Chief Metzger, whose entire administrative career seems to be surrounded in controversey and job jumbing, the taxpayers of Sylvania Township deserve to see the background check.
Contact the Toledo Blade, print it, and justify your actions in hiring Chief Metzger.
I do not see how Trustee Pam Hanley is at all qualified to do a background check on a person who is ultimately going to be the highest level of law enforcement in the community.
Trustee Carol Contrada is a full time attorney who markets the premise of “Justice Shouldn’t Be Blind.” Therefore, I would say to her that it should not be blind in Sylvania Township either.
November 15th, 2008 at 7:14 pmCarol Contrada, Pam Hanley and Dee Dee Liedel:
You three blew it. First of all, anyone you were seriously considering for the position of Chief of Police should have passed an interview with senior Township police officers, as well as passed a group interview with the police. Anyone the officers do not approve should never be hired.
Second, I can not imagine how any of you feel that you, either individually or collectively, would be able to conduct a better background check than the police department. You have an entire department of police officers to do a background check, and you decide that you know better? How many background checks do any of you perform on a regular basis? Metzger has a past that could charitably be described as colorful, and you three chose to ignore this.
Finally, all three of you should take a hard look at the relationship between the Township police officers and the residents. I have always been happy with the Township police officers. They are friendly, professional men and women. I don’t want a lot of change in the police department, and I particularly do not want an arrogant police chief who is more concerned with the length of an officer’s mustache than he is about doing his real job – supporting the patrol officers who actually do the work.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:31 amSo many arrows flung at us, let me respond to a few:
“[Consultant Nate Ford] found problematic areas of low-morale trickled down from upper management.” Yes, he did find low morale, but that was not the only problem or issue his report pointed out. Part of the reason we retained Nate Ford to look at our police department is because of complaints we were hearing from the officers themselves, concerns that they had about the structure, the morale, the organization. To build a better police department (note I said better, I didn’t say what we had was bad to start with), we are addressing the other issues that the Ford report pointed out. That takes time, the input of personnel, and a change in the way some things have been done in the past. To make the Ford report sound as if everything was glowing except for low morale is disingenuous and ignores the issues in the police department that the report pointed out.
And with regard to low morale, that has been a perennial problem in that department for years. Outside of giving them everything they want during contract negotiations (which, trust me, the community can’t afford and even then I’m not sure it would address the morale), I’m not sure how to fix this issue.
What seems to be missing in Good Will’s description of the process involved in hiring Chief Metzger is the unions’ involvement. Members from the union met with the PAR Group during the process to help formulate the employment profile and define what we were looking for; we wanted to know what they wanted in a chief. The union asked for and received a copy of the candidate profiles when top candidates where identified. Three union members (the president from each union I believe) were included in the interview process after we had narrowed it down to a couple candidates and we asked them to submit questions for us to ask while they sat in on the interview. (Something that I’ll note we did for no other department head hiring process.) The union presidents unanimously came back to us supporting Metzger as their choice. Luckily, we agreed with them so there were no worries about having to go with their choice vs. our choice.
As part of the PAR Group’s service, abbreviated background checks are conducted on all top candidates and then more detailed background checks are done on those that we interview. The detailed background check includes additional references, media/internet searches, court records searches, as well as credit checks. When asked (as we do all interviewees) “Is there anything in your background that might embarrass you or the township if the local media discovered it?”, Metzger said yes and explained what was going on up in Huron Township. Before the interview, we were already aware of a controversy, and he did not try to hide it. (An interviewee for our budget director position didn’t own up to a personal bankruptcy, so not everyone looks at this question the same way we do).
We then took that information and confirmed it for ourselves when Pam Hanley visited Huron Township and spoke with 2 elected officials (both of whom wanted to keep Chief Metzger) and a couple of police officers. One statement that Pam shared with us after her visit was from an officer who said “I don’t always agree with his decisions, but he listens and he is fair.” Don’t know about you, but I liked that response. A Chief of Police (or any department head) is not going to be liked by 100% of the people 100% of the time. But when there is a disagreement, does he listen? Is he fair?
So, a background check was conducted, as well as in-person discussions with both superiors and subordinates prior to extending an employment offer to Metzger. I won’t speak for the other trustees, but I haven’t been caught off guard by his past, I did not ignore this past, I was and am comfortable with our decision to hire Chief Metzger. The unions agreed with our selection as well.
I’m going to say this about the ’situation’ in Huron Township, as everything/everyone we talked to about it clearly showed that what really happened was not what was in the media (big surprise there). People at the level of Chief of Police are employed at the discretion of the elected officials. Change in who the elected officials are, elected officials’ personal agendas, and other factors play into continued employment including agreeing or disagreeing with those said elected officials. (I think there are local examples of this and some may even accuse us of this; it is a hazard of reaching this level of authority). Chief Metzger chose not to bend to what he felt was an inappropriate demand by an elected official.
As far as the ‘bad apple’ quote – note that the Blade did not attribute that to anyone specifically. I have never said it, nor have I heard Pam or Carol make that statement. Most people realize you can’t believe everything you read in the Blade. I consider no one in the police department (or other departments) a ‘bad apple’; everyone has their positives, everyone has their negatives.
I have not questioned the loyalty, commitment, or dedication of any of our officers (or any of our employees for that matter). But that doesn’t mean that when a mistake is made, (rules are not followed, protocol not adhered to, employee/resident safety is at risk), that discipline should be ignored. Right now we are putting in place the requirements to go through an accreditation process, something that will improve our services to the Sylvania community (something that the Ford Report recommended). That requires policies, rules and requirements are developed, adopted and followed. (For more information checkout http://www.calea.org.) This will improve our service to the community; improve our use of taxpayer resources; and avoid having to hope we have dedicated, loyal employees and put in place a process to make sure our police officers have the structure to support them doing their job.
Good Will makes it sound like this situation has all of a sudden erupted because of Chief Metzger. But reality is that the police department morale was low before I got elected, they had disagreements with (at least) the immediate past Chief, and they even went so far as to approach me about eliminating two positions held by union members because they didn’t like the union members holding the positions. (How’s that for union loyalty?) We’ve had grievances and discipline issues for years; it has only been in the last month that some have chosen not to waive their trustee hearing; until then all discipline actions were heard by the chief.
I don’t expect the relationship between our officers and our residents/businesses to change. But what I do expect out of the changes happening in the police department is that levy money will last longer because we are operating more efficiently; respect will grow for our department in the criminal justice system as we tighten up our rules and procedures under the accreditation process; and arbitrary actions will be eliminated and replaced with consistent interpretation and application of department procedure.
Let’s not forget what the police department has seen in the last 13+ years: when I was elected, at that time they had had 6 chiefs in 10 years. Metzger was/is their 7th in 10 years, which has turned in to 7 in 13 years. The unions are actively involved in the political process in Sylvania Township and proudly proclaim that they have never backed a losing candidate for township trustee, during a time that we have had unprecedented turnover of trustees (until Carol was reelected last year, a trustee had not been reelected since 1993 … or 14 years). Do you think those two items are unrelated?
Nate Ford’s report clearly showed that after that much change-over in 10 years, he was impressed with the level of employees and services that we provide to the community. But clearly, such a history also had negative impacts on the department, and that report has been our guide in addressing those negatives while maintaining and encouraging the positives.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:13 pmAfter looking at Metzger’s history of conflict and divisive behavior – I am very surprised that the Trustees made this their decision.
They really let their constituency down. And it was an irrational conclusion – what is it that this man could have said to overcome the elephant(s) in the room during the interview process?
The sad part is that the Township – correct me if I am wrong – has not been a criminal hotbed. So if it’s not broke what in the world are these Trustees doing trying to turn the Police Dept’ in the Township into an ‘urban’ force?
Ridiculous.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:53 pmThe comment from The Blade: Township trustees say Chief Metzger – the township’s seventh police chief in 10 years – is reclaiming leadership of the 41-officer department from “a few bad apples.”
I would attribute this comment to Chief Metzger. If there are any ‘bad apples’ in the Sylvania Township PD, why haven’t charges been filed?
Chief Metzger has a history of conflict which he’s bringing to Sylvania Towhship. Moreover, involving union officials into the hiring practice is not the same as having the applicant meet and interview with the officers in the department.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:54 pmDee Dee Liedel– I would like to respond to a portion of your blog commentary, and I will try very hard to be brief.
I am not going to dance around words. Rather, I think it is time to ask direct questions and hope for direct answers.
Dee Dee Liedel said: “So many arrows flung at us, let me respond to a few.”
In response to the arrow flinging comment—those flying arrows came from the township initially. I am just playing catch-up.
Therefore, in defense of my own arrow flinging, it is simply self defense. I am tired of the politics. I am tired of the politicians staging what they want the public to know and hiding behind politically correct phrasing to hide what they don’t want them to know.
I quickly or, not so quickly, realized I was playing on an unfair playing field—one in which you, the township administration, have had a free-range freedom of speech to catalogue your battle in public – namely one Toledo Blade. All along it has been nothing but “chalk one up for the township.”
Therefore, I had to take my battle to the blogs and, fortunately for me, I too have a few arrows in my quiver, most of which are not meant to wound people but more to take aim at righting a wrong.
Dee Dee Liedel said: “To make the Ford report sound as if everything was glowing except for low morale is disingenuous…”
There was really nothing at all “disingenuous” about my pointing out the portion of Nate Ford’s report aimed at his discovery of the kind of employees that worked, and still do work, for the Sylvania Township Police Department. I did not in any way misrepresent his “glowing” comments about those police officers and employees.
Furthermore, I never claimed to offer up a full representation of the entire Nate Ford report. I did what I did because the employees were being misrepresented in the press, in a way I found lacking truth and therefore, disingenuous.
I know there were other issues that needed attention, all noted within the body of that report and even that the department was not glowingly perfect, but I also know it didn’t require a stick of dynamite to fix what needed to be fixed.
Which brings us back again to that word—“disingenuous,” and a concerning statement you made in your blog that requires further questioning.
Dee Dee Liedel said: “The union presidents unanimously came back to us supporting Metzger as their choice.”
That statement is simply not true.
Do you recall at least two of the officers coming to you with serious reservations about Chief Metzger? Do you recall your adamant response? There was no unanimous endorsement of Chief Robert Metzger. Those officers were concerned about information gathered in a quick internet search of this candidate, and that’s all it took, one quick Google, to produce enough brow-raising elements of controversy to raise more than one red flag. In fact, they wanted you to slow down, to hold off on any offer until a complete and thorough background check could be performed—which, again, Nate Ford offered to do.
You, Dee Dee Liedel, said, “No.” (That was your vote.)
Then, Pam Hanley said, “No.” (That was her vote.)
In fact, Pam Hanley even went so far as to say she would “not subject him to a background check.”
Not subject him to a background check???
Is it disingenuous to say she barely knew the man?
Apparently, this man that you barely knew, at some point, separate from the officers’ ears, told you a story you could believe and that was simply good enough. And, for whatever reason, his stories have been simply good enough ever since.
When you preach concern of safety for the Sylvania Township community, which I might remind you, your peacekeepers take very seriously, how is it then that you can bring a man into the community to take the highest level position in the police department and, in the end, irresponsibly decide to simply not do a serious background check? To just take him at his word?
A limited amount of “Googling” for a person with limited amount of investigative skills yielded an awful lot in the negative column for Chief Robert Metzger back in 2006/2007. It’s a little buried now, but if you know where to look you can find it.
In the end, though, you hired a police chief with compromised credibility because you voted not to do that serious, righteously and prudently reasonable background check when uncompromised credibility should have been the highest priority in your selection of police chief.
A police chief with no credibility IS a stick of dynamite.
Lives have been tumbled upside down, longstanding reputations and careers have been carelessly tarnished. I took such strong issue with being misrepresented to the public as so many “bad apples” because I have seen a real representative of law enforcement laid out in unethical treatment at the hands of the real bad apple.
All because you “refused to subject him to a background check.”
We deserve those answers and not in so much political round-about talk that you try to talk us right out of knowing what you really did, how you really did it and why you really did it.
The arrows are coming your way because your actions have been suspect and we need answers.
There are still arrows in my quiver I have not taken out. They still need a little encouragement.
November 19th, 2008 at 12:32 amGood Will wrote:
I’m looking for the direct questions and I don’t see any, although I’ll repeat myself in making a few comments.
Comments were made about a situation we already knew about. What more was there to investigate? If you think people of Metzger’s level (or any high ranking public official) doesn’t have issues in the past or recent past because of POLITICS … that’s just not reality. yes, Ford offered to do a background check. But did he really think one needed to be done? No, because he understood as did we how politics and the media plays in to stuff like this.
Reality is that a few police officers came to us wanting to control the hiring of a new police chief just like they have controlled and manipulated the separation from service and hiring of numerous past police chiefs resulting in 6 chiefs in 10 years.
As I said, a background check was done on him. If someone wants to come to us with something that we didn’t know about that negatively affects his performance or negatively reflects on the township, give me that. But that’s not what we’re talking about, we’re talking about a situation that we knew about.
And I have to add, the church situation that MT mentioned in #3? Give me a break; he was doing his job – enforcing the law. It was the decision of the trustees (or whoever the elected officials are in Michigan townships) to go after the issue with the church; Metzger was just enforcing the court order. That’s not a power trip, that’s doing his job.
You’ve been threatening these other arrows for a while now; if you have something make it public. As I said, our officers have the ability to keep personnel issues private. But if someone wants to make this stuff public, I have no problem responding to it with all of the information available.
November 19th, 2008 at 9:25 amI am not going to sit and hawk blog sites all day as you seem to have the ability to do. I have to work. Therefore, I will get back with you on the other “threatened arrows.”
Dee Dee – Robert Metzger has credibility issues. For police department leadership, that is huge and that is the bottom line.
I don’t care how long and decorated his history is; I understand controversy along the way, but not to the degree of Robert Metzger – his past cannot escape him. When someone is riddled with that much controversy – his word becomes hugely suspect.
A whole police department would not be up in arms if Chief Metzger was only affecting a few people. He is affecting the whole department.
I understand the trustees’ commitment to back up your police chief, to reasonably try to stay out of the way; I understand the desire to avoid the micro-managing game but, unfortunately, you picked a police chief that needs to be micro-managed. Unfortunately, that is what the previous departments found out and, in the micromanaging, Metzger revealed his inability to lead. He revealed his credibility issues.
Those departments made a decision to commit to their officers, their community and pay closer attention. That’s what this department would hope from you – that you could remove your bias, and look at what is going on with a new pair of eyes.
I raise the issue of the background check, again a full and complete background check, because it would have avoided all of this had it been done.
You have never been a police officer. You have no clue how important it is that these men and women can trust their police chief. That trust is severely compromised in this situation. If you think that shady dealings are not going on with that gentleman, if you want to turn a blind eye and stake your reputations on his word alone – then you will have to deal with the fall-out. Robert Metzger’s lies finally catch up with themselves.
My stake in this is simple and clear-conscienced. It is simply advocating for people acting reasonably as people to one another.
I would never have even bothered to begin an investigation of this man if he had not represented himself as someone who blatantly disrespected others, blatantly misrepresented the truth, blatantly listened to falsehoods and hearsay of others, basing his decisions on that, and then took those falsehoods and hearsay to the trustees, misrepresenting people who, ultimately, are dismissed as having any merit to be heard.
The people who work inside that building know a different Robert Metzger than he represents to you. They know someone who is ruthless, someone who undermines relationships, someone who does not use prudent, clear-headed judgment but rather sees in the situation how it will help his cause and his cause alone. They see a person who does not operate within the societal norm of ethics. They see a man who discriminates. These are patterns of behavior that precede him.
I am not one voice, Dee Dee. There is a whole miserable choir singing behind me. My voice and my questioning and concern of this man came long before I even knew there was a choir singing behind me. I was hit in the gut and so my gut went looking to try to understand.
His background is not just one of a man who has been a police chief and “ticked off” some people. His background is one of playing people against each other for his own gain. His background is one of simply negating others and their worth.
No one likes to have their reputation trampled on. No one likes to work all their lives at their chosen profession to have it wiped out in the blink of an eye. No one.
Do you honestly think anyone would be having issues with this man if he had come into that department and operated on fairness, on the matured, sound leadership, the level of leadership he should have reached in the number of years he had been a police chief.
“Metzger’s level” of leadership is not leadership at all. He is what has come to be known as toxic leadership. A leader who is passed along from one unwitting department, one after another–each one “allowing for a neutral reference” and, thereby, allowing for that toxicity to spread and bleed into the next unwitting department.
Metzger took the police chief position in Adrian PD and lasted 2-1/2 years (not 3 years) when they asked him to leave for the very things he is doing in Sylvania Township – but – what’s really sad – is that what he is doing in Sylvania Township is by far worse than what he did there. The difference – the Adrian administration demonstrated a reasonable and prudent sense of impartiality – they had a respectful sense to look out for their police officers – they did not give Metzger the keys to the kingdom and turn their backs. They had the sense to look into things when they became aware of Metzger’s subjective leadership practices; practices they wisely knew would disrupt a police department; practices they knew would elevate distrust in a police department; practices they knew, if continued, had the potential to ruin a police department.
You tell me Dee Dee Liedel – where could a police officer or a public employee go to report an ethics violation without fear of retaliation?
Who amongst Dee Dee Liedel, Pam Hanley, Carol Contrada, Hugh Thomas, Chief Robert Metzger, or even Deputy Chief Robert Boehme – who could they rely on fully, without question, to carry them through with the belief they would still have a job in that township, that they would not be facing retaliation and retribution in the aftermath. Who in that group could possibly offer them a safe place to land?
Why do you think employees grieving to the union has gone up in numbers? They have nowhere else to go. Some of them don’t even grieve to the union because they see what has happened to the ones who have. They see how long the grievance process is dragged out and are unsure if their coping skills could carry them through. Those people remain silent, remain fearful; they work in a state of stress and distress.
That is what they have been subjected to in a Chief Metzger leadership. That is what they have been subjected to in a Liedel, Hanley, Contrada administrative leadership. Unless you show them differently. That is why I harp on the goodness of those employees – because, apparently, you all have forgotten that.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:02 amThe PAR Group’s Offering: Question what that service cost and what you actually got for the money? http://swampbubbles.com/blogs/good-will/20081116/chief-metzger-reclaiming-leadershipfrom-few-bad-apples#comment-34018
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 pmThere’s no way to spin this that this was a good choice. You just can’t get there from here.
The Trustees screwed up. Long and short of it – instead of addressing the situation and rectifying it – we’re now seeing the LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG explanation of why it isn’t actually a screw up.
Yeah. It’s a screw up. You can put interviews, you can put all kinds of lipstick on this thing – it’s really a screw up. If you’d have just spent 25 seconds googling this guy – this dialogue wouldn’t be happening. And fyi – alot of us have a hard time with the idea of cops getting their chops busted by a guy with an ego problem. The job they do demands more respect than getting fussed at over the length of a mustache. He’s done this everywhere he’s been. YOU MADE A MISTAKE.
Just fix it and move on. It’s what the rest of us do when we drop the ball.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 pmTo kateb:
You got that right. It’s screwed up. And it’s the taxpayer and the community that is being screwed along with the police department.
The amount of money the trustees have spent over the last year in grievance procedures, arbitration hearings, pending Unfair Labor Practice hearings and pending trials in Columbus, Ohio, not to mention the hourly lawyer rate spent on the current labor contract which has taken over 12 months to settle and still not signed is ridiculous and irresponsible. The township trustees have hired a law firm out of Cleveland, Ohio – Johnson & Schmidt to represent Sylvania Township and Chief Metzger at every one of these issues, at heaven knows the $$$$ hourly rate.
You can believe it adds up to thousands and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money spent on political foolishness. Selfish police department or selfish politicians??
For any taxpayer who cares – this is all public record. You can see for yourselves how they are really wasting your money.
Ask Dee Liedel, Carol Contrada, or Pam Hanley how much all of this has cost. Will you get a straight answer? No probably more of the same “LONGGGGGGGG explanation.”
As a concerned citizen, I say taxpayers wise up — demand full disclosure of ALL LEGAL FEES.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 pmI hear you. Well said – and as I said – all anybody needs to do is google this guy to know what the problem is.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 pmAlso – kateb – google the guy and go to Adrian, Michigan’s local paper – The Daily Telegram – register and go into their Archives (you may have to pay a small fee to use this, or you could go to your local library), and there you will find a gold mine. Printed documentation of adminstratiion’s comments to the media on how and why he was terminated.
**Also an amusing caricature-type cartoon of him getting booted out the door of the Adrian PD.
When you research you find a lot of similar treatment of employees.
The Huron Township paper – the News-Herald had an article about a female officer who was disciplined much the same way as the nustached officer in STPD. Her hair was touching her shirt collar much to Metzger’s dislike. Apparently, she tried to satisfy him by pulling it up while at work rather than cutting it to the length he preferred. Disciplinary action ensued.
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 am