Very concerned

by Susan Devlin, Stevensville

Did you know that Stevensville was without any police force at all from 2/9/24 until the new police chief was sworn in on February 14th? And that he is the only law enforcement officer active in Stevensville? Two officers submitted their resignations on 2/7/24 giving two weeks notice. Michalson decided to let them go the weekend of the 10-11 of February for a “clean slate.”

The SRO is off attending the police academy.

There were 36 applicants for the police chief’s position. Somehow someone whittled it down to only Boe. I’m not aware that any of the other applicants were interviewed and if they were, who interviewed them?  

Chief Boe comes from Tennessee and has 33 years of law enforcement background. I understand that Marble has been asked to come “for a week” to help train him.

A recent town council meeting was called for on February 8. I find it highly unusual and very suspicious that only 10 minutes of that entire meeting were recorded – and that was at the end of the meeting. Michalson said that there was no discussion during that meeting on the police officers’ resignation notices! The section not recorded should have included the police report.

Chief Boe has “been studying the Montana Code” and will take the “state officer transition class.”

I want to know who/how the list of 36 candidates was whittled down to only one.  

When Mayor Dewey was mayor and the town was looking to hire a new police chief, the townspeople were invited to a meet and greet to visit with the four candidates who had applied. We were able to talk to them, ask them questions, etc. And each of their qualifications had been posted prior to the meet and greet.

There was nothing posted about the 36 on the town’s website or their FB page. This was all done without our knowledge.

And the police clerk resigned. The billing clerk resigned. The Finance Officer/Human Resource officer resigned. I don’t have figures on how many town employees have resigned in the last five years but there have been way, way too many. We’ve had 11 mayors in 16 years, except for one, all have not finished their terms due to the total dysfunction of the town. We’ve also had approximately 35 council members in that same time period. We’ve had four police chiefs in the past five years and close to 15 officers in the same period.

If all this behind the scenes doesn’t bother you, it should. What else is going on that we’re not aware of?