MORGANTOWN — For more than an hour on Tuesday, Morgantown Police Chief Eric Powell sat with the city’s Civilian Police Review and Advisory Board.
As he has previously, he spoke candidly with the board about a number of issues, including for the first time what he described as a “general, lingering adversarial relationship” his department has had with city administration in recent years.
He was asked to expound upon that description.
“Yeah, our officers sued the city, and they voted no confidence in the past city manager, and myself, and the assistant city manager and, I think, HR,” he said.
Indeed that all happened, and Morgantown City Council was also included on that “no confidence” list.
Much of that occurred in mid-to-late 2022, when the city was implementing changes to its handbook and compensation plan that both police officers and firefighters believed would disproportionately impact their pay and benefits.
But the start of the rift between the MPD and city hall predates all of that and could easily be said to include the creation of the very board to which Powell was lamenting “this sort of malaise that’s kind of overtaken the department.”
On May 18, 2021, Morgantown City Council voted to create the police review and advisory board after more than 10 months of discussion, public meetings, and, as the issue progressed, warnings from both the state’s attorney general and the Monongalia-Preston Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 87 that it was running afoul of civil service law.
The very next morning, the FOP filed suit.
Seven months later, former Monongalia County Circuit Judge Susan Tucker ruled the city’s newly created oversight board was in violation, and therefore invalid.
In May of 2022, the FOP accepted a settlement through which the advisory board could move forward with powers limited to public outreach, data collection and policy review.
That same month, the FOP sued the city once again. This time for access to the aforementioned compensation study.
Four months later, another FOP lawsuit was filed against the city, this time in conjunction with suits brought by the International Association of Firefighters Local 313 regarding the new pay and benefits plan.
The city doesn’t formally recognize either union, both of which declared “no confidence” in former City Manager Kim Haws, Assistant City Manager Emily Muzzarelli, former Human Resources Director John Bihun and Morgantown City Council.
Powell said frustrations festered within the department as some officers believed the city was targeting them with the new pay and benefits policies, particularly as they were often stonewalled by a newly-bolstered human resources department.
“I think communication is part of it. I think there’s a degree of inconsistency. I think there’s a degree of unresponsiveness to complaints,” Powell said. “So, if an officer experiences some discrepancy in pay, they might point this out. Then if it doesn’t get dealt with, it just lingers. Or if it takes an excessively long period of time to resolve the issues … that creates problems.”
He said those frustrations were still lingering in early 2024, when he first sat down with the police advisory board.
During that meeting, Powell spoke openly about what he believed were issues with professionalism within the department. He also seemed receptive to the claim that too many officers responded to a trespassing incident the board was analyzing as a case study.
Less than a week later, the FOP issued a press release declaring “no confidence” in Powell’s leadership.
“When an organization like the FOP makes a public statement like that, it appears disingenuous for me to say anything in my defense … I felt it was better to just let it be and know what it really was,” Powell said.
The chief’s belief is that a lot of it was the result of a lot of pent up frustrations over the city’s policy changes and the “not very well-managed” department that was tasked with implementing them.
Once things get to a certain point, he continued, everyone stops getting the benefit of the doubt.
“It just compounds that adversarial feeling that you’re not being heard or you’re there against us, and it just keeps kind of festering and it’s hard to overcome,” he said.
Even so, Powell believes the department’s officers are performing their duties at a high level.
“I feel it’s positive that my officers, even though they’re as disgruntled as they seem to be for the most part, they’re not allowing it to affect the quality of the work they’re doing, which is something to be said for them,” he concluded. “They’re still doing what they’re supposed to be doing with respect to their job, and I’m proud of them for that.”
