When Police Chief Kemberle Braden announced he would retire at the end of March, the city was left with three and a half months to find a replacement.
At Monday’s Fayetteville City Council meeting, city officials announced that a search is underway for a new chief. The city will use the consulting firm Developmental Associates to conduct the search, City Manager Doug Hewett said.
“They know our community very well,” Hewett said. “They assist us in all of our promotional processes at the police department and have been instrumental in the last two chief searches.”
Two years into the role, Braden announced his retirement as chief in early December. Whoever replaces Braden will follow a tenure during which crime was expected to be the lowest in a decade. The city also saw an 8% decrease in overall crime in 2023, Braden’s first year on the job.
Jerry Clipp, director of Human Resources Development, said the hiring process will begin with Developmental Associates gathering input from the city council, the city’s senior leadership team, police officers and community members about the qualities they’re looking for in the next police chief.
“So they’ll be asking that question, what are the top three to five priorities or issues that the chief needs to focus on?” Clipp said. “And then what are the most important knowledge, skills and abilities this individual must have? Once they do that and they get all that feedback, they’re going to create a profile or DNA for the next police chief. They will do a customized application and then go ahead and post the position to begin the recruitment process.”
Once the job is posted, candidates will have an opportunity to engage in a “realistic job preview” to get a sense of what it’s like to be chief, including both the positive and negative aspects, by speaking with Braden and Hewett.
“We’re going to do also what’s called a realistic job preview, where applicants can call in and they can do it anonymously, and they will have an opportunity to speak with our current chief on kind of what’s the day in the life, what’s the community like, what are the priorities and things like that going on at this time in our community,” Clipp said.
Once the position closes, Developmental Associates will provide information on the candidates to city officials, who will narrow down the applicant pool to the top 10 candidates. Developmental Associates will then conduct a “more thorough second-level screening,” Clipp said, which will include things like interviews and surveys. That information will be used to narrow it down to the top three to five candidates, who will then be scheduled and scored on an “assessment center,” Clip said. An assessment center involves having applicants complete a series of exercises and activities that simulate challenging situations they could face on the job.
“In the meantime,” Clip said, “we’ll also have meet-and-greets with the city council here at a council meeting, the Police Foundation, the community, the police department and others as we collect feedback for the selection of the final candidate.”
While the position has not yet been posted, Developmental Associates is already “shaking the tree” of potential candidates for the position, Hewett said. He emphasized that the city council will be heavily involved in the search process, starting with meetings with Developmental Associates at the end of this month.
“We are very desirous of having council’s feedback on this in particular,” Hewett said. “The council will have an opportunity to help inform the candidates and myself and the community as to what the council believes we need in our next police chief.”
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608. This story was made possible by donations from readers like you to CityView News Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
