Council to discuss CLS police chief’s job

CLEAR LAKE SHORES — The job performance of Paul Shelley, the city’s police chief and city administrator, will be discussed in a closed-door meeting of the city council after a council member said she has uncovered problems within the city’s police department.

Initially, council member Tami Perkins sought to include an agenda item that called for Shelley’s firing as police chief, but Mayor Vern Johnson, who calls the effort “a vendetta,” refused to let that be on the agenda.

The job performance review has divided the lakeside community of about 1,200 with signs of “Save our Police Chief” and a petition drive to show support for Shelley circulating around town and on the Internet.

Shelley was appointed chief in 1995, and with the exception of a six-month hiatus in 1998 has been the city’s top cop for 16 years. About five years ago, he also took on the duties as city administrator.

Perkins, who was elected to the council last year, said she launched a personal investigation into the police department when she overheard the wife of a police officer complaining how officers were “mistreated” by Shelley.

“I went into this without any opinion of this other than I liked the chief and his wife,” Perkins said.

Shelley’s wife, Tina, also is an officer in the department.

Perkins said she had a series of private meetings with police department employees as well as former officers. She said what she heard concerned her but would not go into specifics.

She said nothing she had gathered indicated anything illegal had been done by Shelley or someone else in the department.

“I know it don’t smell good and it don’t look good,” Perkins said of the information she uncovered from her discussions with the employees.

“It’s not been a fun thing to do,” she sad. “The employees and past officers feel they have been done wrong.”

While allegations making the rounds in the city include unproven assertions, a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former Clear Lake Shores police officer Bill Young, revealed that Shelley had been cited by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education for providing answers to officers taking a federal emergency management test in 2007. Officers received credit for taking the tests.

The reprimand is a letter put on file and stays on Shelley’s permanent record, but he received no other punishment as a result of the commission’s review of the case, which according to records, was given to the commission by Young after he had been fired.

The reprimand wasn’t made public until Young’s attorney included it in a news tip he provided the media during the weekend at the same time he released Young’s declaration of candidacy for Galveston County Sheriff. Young admitted he was behind the commission’s investigation and that he had not informed the state of the violations until after he had been fired in 2009.

In December, Young and the city settled the federal lawsuit over his firing for $11,000 and the reinstatement of his rank with neither side admitting fault.

Shelley declined to comment on tonight’s meeting.

Johnson said Perkins’ effort is “nothing more than a vendetta being pushed by supporters of Young.”

+++

WHAT: Clear Lake Shores City Council

WHEN: 7 p.m. today

WHERE: Clear Lake Shores Club House, 931 Cedar Road in Clear Lake Shores