There appears to be a staff shakeup in the Town of Beloit, and a large part of it is within the police department. "We are eliminating the deputy chief of police position, and creating an administrative assistant," says town administrator Bob Museus.
Museus says the changes are being made based on efficiency and to save money, but that's not what Town of Beloit officer and union steward Chris Luzinski says. "We believe changes were made for retaliation purposes, and not some long term goal of efficiency" says Luzinski, but rather in retaliation for a no-confidence vote given to Police Chief John Wilson a couple weeks ago.
"We're going to be doing open records requests to look for any precedents before this, as far as any discussions that they had about any of these restructuring," says Luzinski. "We've heard no word of it, even through or contract negotiations up to this point." One of the major changes involves removing Willis Abegglen as deputy chief and returning him to the rank of sergeant.
Luzinski says he'll be meeting with attorneys soon to see if they will be taking any legal actions. Museus says the town will be saving between $50-thousand to $70-thousand a year with the changes.