The Bellevue City Council meeting on Wednesday opened with a swearing-in and some special announcements from the police department.
New police officer
Police Chief Jon McClain began the council meeting by introducing new officer Austin Begley, whom Mayor Charlie Cleves then swore in. Begley comes to Bellevue from the Boone County Sheriff’s Department. His family was on hand for the brief ceremony.
After the swearing in, McClain said it was time to announce some annual awards from his department.
Officer of the Year
“Last year, I started presenting the Officer of the Year Award and a Community Partnership Award,” said McClain. “I wanted to do something that recognizes certain officers in our department who have gone the extra mile. It was a hard decision this year. If I could have given every single one of them an award, I would have.”
McClain said that over the last year, there were times when they were really short-handed. ” The crew stepped up. They didn’t complain about working 40, 50, 60 hours a week.”
During the process of looking for the right candidates to fill open positions, McClain said his officers were patient and supported his goal of finding the best fit for the job, even if that took them working overtime and extra shifts.
“They have the best interests of the city and the department,” he added.
He then announced that this year’s Officer of the Year was TJ Hawks.
“He helped me out a lot last year with lots of things that he did on his own time,” said McClain. “For example, when we got rid of some of the old cruisers, he stripped them out, a service that would have cost us a few hundred dollars to take them somewhere to do it. He was able to do that for us. He’s a team player. If I ask him to do anything, he does it, and it gets done. He’s taken over the property room, which is a huge task.”
Community Partnership Award
After congratulating Officer Hawks, McClain told the story of how he first met a community member whom he honored with the annual Community Partnership Award.
“My very first task with the Bellevue Police Department is one that I’ll always hold as a dear honor,” said McClain. “When I came back from the academy during Fourth of July break, we had a Bellevue resident killed in action in Afghanistan. So I was told that my job was to go over to Lunken Airport and escort our fallen hero back. And I talked to Russell Madden’s mom and dad several times and told them how much an honor that was for me, that it was one of the highlights of my career here.”
“Ever since I’ve known the Maddens, when we do our drives, whether it be for back-to-school stuff or our care stuff, Mr. Madden has always come through with donations through his foundation, and anything that the police department needed help with, he’s helped us out. His nomination was submitted by Officer [Michael] Brown, who heads up our back-to-school supplies. So I’d like to ask Mr. Marty Madden to come up and accept this award on behalf of the Bellevue Police Department.”
After thanking and congratulating Madden, McClain said he had one more honor to award.
A special award and thanks
McClain asked Bellevue city attorney Dave Fessler to stand and accept his appreciation.
“As I talked about, last year was a busy year for me,” said McClain. “I had to do some things I never wanted to do as a chief, and I had a lot of help from our city attorney, Dave Fessler, with paperwork as well as moving over to our new body cameras. We got our tasers, a lot of contracts we had to go through and get approved, and Mr. Fessler always went through them and made sure that the wording was right for the city,” McClain said.
“So, in the six years I’ve worked with Mr. Fessler, all the meetings and everything, all he has ever said he wanted from the city was his Porsche. But if there’s anything I learned from Mr. Fessler, was the importance of verbiage, and at no point did he ever say the size the Porsche had to be, or anything else like that. And, so he doesn’t have to bring it up anymore, I have the City Attorney of the Year Award, the Porsche Carrera GT that Mr. Fessler has been asking for, for six years.”
With that, McClain handed Fessler a model of the car of his dreams.
