Liberty, Girard residents need details about police

Liberty Township’s police department has a temporary leader — in the wake of Chief Anthony Slifka’s departure; Girard’s police department has a chief who is on paid administrative leave — while he is being investigated.

Residents in both communities are left to wonder what’s going on.

Details about Slifka’s resignation remain sketchy. Trustees have said the former chief, who was hired in 2001, was given the option of leaving the position or being fired. He struck a deal to leave, and it appears that the financial settlement agreed to is more lucrative than what he would have received had he been fired.

That alone raises all kinds of questions.

What the public has been told by trustees are the reasons for Slifka’s fall from grace: an elderly woman’s death of hypothermia after police officers failed to find her outside her home; the investigation of an officer accused of tracking his girlfriend via a global positioning system; and, the investigation into missing funds from the township’s now-closed post office.

Given that the former chief’s performance in those three cases prompted his bosses to seek his departure, residents have a right to know what Slifka did or did not do.

Indeed, the death of Mary Rush is still a topic of conversation because communications between police officers responding to 911 calls on that fateful night still have not been disclosed.

Recordings of the calls between a neighbor and the 911 dispatcher, and the dispatcher and the officers do not paint a complete picture.

Trustees have appointed a veteran township officer, Capt. Richard Tisone, to replace Slifka, but he hasn’t been given the job permanently.

There will be a formal application process for the position, and Tisone has said he may not be interested in having it permanently.

The unanswered questions surrounding Slifka’s departure could undermine the search for a new chief. Trustees should come clean with all the facts — as soon as possible.

Girard

In Girard, where a battle between police Chief Frank Bigowski and Mayor James Melfi has become public, an investigation is being conducted — but no one outside the mayor and a select few city officials know the details.

The only thing the public is privy to is the fact that the chief has been placed on paid administrative leave.

While we understand the need for secrecy while investigators are questioning city employees, the public does deserve to be told whether Bigowski is being investigated for his conduct with regard to the mayor, or whether there is a violation of the law.

As we said in a previous editorial, we find no fault with the mayor implementing rules that give him direct management authority over the chief. Indeed, requiring Bigowski to meet with him in his office each morning at 9 is not unreasonable.

But if Melfi was offended by the chief’s behavior some time ago that resulted in the shouting match, then we would suggest that such an incident does not rise to the level of a formal investigation of the city’s top law enforcement officer.

It is revealing, however, that the civil service commission has concluded that it does not have the authority to look into a complaint filed by Bigowski pertaining to his clash with Melfi.