Quincy extends interim police chief contract

QUINCY — The Quincy City Council on Tuesday extended the contract of the current interim police chief, William Larson, to the end of November, as the city starts in earnest its hunt for a new police chief.

Larson, who retired from the Washington State Patrol in 2008, was brought in to head the Quincy Police Department in April after the sudden and surprise resignation of Chief Bob Heimbach. His original interim contract was set to conclude at the end of August.

After retiring from the state patrol, Larson worked as head of security for the Chelan Public Utility District.

“I’m keeping my options open but I don’t have anything in the works,” Larson said when asked if he was constitutionally capable of retiring.

The council also updated the official job description for police chief after discovering that what it stated as requirements in the published advertisement did not match the requirements for police chief in the city code.

“In the process of researching this I found a draft of an updated job description that was never actually passed,” said Mayor Jim Hemberry.

The most significant changes to the police chief job description involve altering the amount of experience desired — to “ten years of law enforcement experience, five of which must have been equivalent to the rank of lieutenant or above in a comparably sized department including three years of police management” — along with legally requiring the police chief to reside within the Quincy city limits.

Hemberry said that Quincy only sent out the job announcement last week.

“There are no applications yet, not that I know of. I don’t expect anyone to jump right in on this, it will take a little time to get their stuff together,” Hemberry said.

The deadline for applications for anyone interested in the chief job is the end of August.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.