King City, Calif. - Former Greenfield Police Chief Joe Grebmeier is running for City Council in King City. Things didn't end smoothly in Greenfield for Grebmeier, and we've been telling you about the bad blood brewing over a police merger with Soledad that ultimately cost Grebmeier his job. Now, some are saying Grebmeier is trying to stop a four city police merger by running for city council.
But Grebmeier says that's not true. He says he left Greenfield due to losing favor with the City Council there. So the next step was to retire after 9 years. How does he respond to opponents of his candidacy and an alleged pushing of his agenda?
"On camera? On camera....ah...not true. I've been living in king city for over 35 years. King City has been my community and I've been active in the Greenfield community. I'm not sure what the agenda is in greenfield now but I know what the agenda is in King City. People want to support the police and fire and they want to support the local businesses..and they want to be heard on the major issues."
Grebmeier is running on support for public safety, economic growth for local business and he freely admits that he opposes the consolidation of the 4 south county police forces.
Does he have any fears? "One of the fears of consolidation is loss of local control...instead of King City making decisions about how it wants police service. It'll be made by a joint powers authority or someone else."
But aren't the issues the same in the south county? You have gangs and everybody knows what goes on and you have one police force communicating on the same issues?
Grebmeier says "The issues maybe the same...not quite..the issues are different in Gonzales and King City. The issues are different in Soledad. There's a lot of property crime rate right now and how you address those issues are somewhat unique to each city."
And Grebmeier feels the economics of this proposed merger doesn't add up either. He says supposedly they'd be saving by eliminating 3 Chiefs, but then you have to make two new commanders. Add to this all 4 cities make a different pay grade.
In the final analysis, he says if consolidation is so important then the communities should vote on it not just the politicians deciding to do it.
Email: JonKBrent@KIONRightNow.com
Twitter: @JonKBrent
@
@
@
