By Charla Wurm-Adams
cwurm@wbcowqel.com
Crestline Mayor David Sharrock and the police department, especially Chief Joe Butler continued to come under fire from council members at the Crestline Village Council meeting on Monday.
It was at the last council meeting that Sharrock announced there would be an investigation into allegations members of the Crestline Police Department were soliciting sexual favors from motorists in exchange for not writing traffic tickets. Butler said that particular investigation has been turned over to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
But neither Butler, nor Sharrock, were free from scrutiny Monday.
Mike Blaising, who resigned his seat at the previous meeting after having served for more than 20 years, was attending his final meeting in the role as a council member. Blaising had indicated when he resigned there were other reasons other than what he had stated behind his mid-term resignation. Monday Blaising confirmed those other reasons and read from a prepared statement concerning Kevin Taylor, another council member who had previously resigned.
In part, Blaising’s statement said, “Mayor Sharrock and Chief Butler didn’t like him (Taylor) digging into information they didn’t want to answer to. So, in order to get him off council, they made numerous calls to Taylor’s boss saying he was using company time to do council work; which was proven not to be true. He nearly lost his job. His boss checked everything and found the accusations to be a lie. To intentionally do something like this . . . to take away his income to support his family . . . to ruin his reputation . . . all of this to remove him from council is outrageous.”
Blaising’s statement also revealed he believes rumors have been spread about him regarding his support of the village fire department in order to discredit him and his criticism of the administration.
Another council member, Clayton Herold, also read from a prepared statement that was critical of Sharrock’s leadership, particularly in the area of finances.
In the business portion of the meeting, Village Council gave its blessing and approval to the addition of a captain’s position for the police department. Current officer Bret Ruhe is being considered for promotion to that position and that will be addressed at the next council meeting.
Sharrock discussed the value of adding a captain to the police department.
“The possibility of a caption to help with the everyday operations with the Police Department, it’s been a long time coming as council members did say tonight. It would be very beneficial,” Sharrock said. “We have a lot of young officers and the Officer that we are looking at is seasoned and brings a lot of knowledge and expertise to us.”
Crestline firefighters are receiving EMT training that is being funded by a grant.