Four Named Finalists For Public Safety Director

The Indianapolis Star has identified four finalists the Ballard administration is considering for the public safety director's job recently vacated by Frank Straub, who was forced to resign amidst controversy, including two outsiders and two locals:

Indianapolis Fire Chief Brian Sanford and Homeland Security Chief Gary Coons are competing with an assistant city manager from Texas and a former U.S. Homeland Security official for one of the city’s most important jobs . . .

Community members on a search committee met for four hours Tuesday with the out-of-state candidates: Troy Riggs, an assistant city manager for public safety in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Todd M. Keil, former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security . . .

Riggs spent 20 years with the police department in Louisville, Ky., before becoming police chief in Corpus Christi, overseeing 450 officers in the Gulf Coast city. He took the assistant city manager’s job in November.

City officials in Corpus Christi could not be reached for comment, but the city’s website credits Riggs with cutting the police department budget by $5 million while overseeing a drop in some crimes.

In Louisville, Police Chief Steve Conrad said Riggs rose to assistant chief in charge of the support bureau . . .

The fourth candidate, Keil, resigned from his job at Homeland Security in February after criticizing the administration of President Barack Obama for doing little to improve safety at the country’s 4,400 chemical facilities.

Obama appointed Keil, a Wisconsin native, as the assistant secretary of infrastructure protection in December 2009.

Before that, Keil had several jobs with the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, according to the Homeland Security website. He served in Indonesia, Ireland and Austria. From 1994 to 2000, Keil served on security details for two secretaries of state.

Coons, you may recall, is the former Perry Township Trustee. Coons believed that he had negotiated a quid pro quo with the Ballard administration a few years back when he agreed to merge the township's fire department with IFD whereby he would be appointed to the public safety director's job, replacing Scott Newman. When that plan fell through, the Ballard administration agreed to create the bogus homeland security job for Coons within the department, which is a total waste of taxpayer dollars. Coons tried to keep the full-time township trustee's position after the new city job was created for him until the media began asking questions about how he could draw a salary for two full-time government jobs. Under pressure, he resigned the trustee's job.

 

Some observers are wondering what happened to Bruce Henry, a former police officer who now works as the city's human resources director. He had been rumored to be one of the finalists. City-County Councilor Ben Hunter wants the job, but he's awaiting a draft Hunter movement to take hold that has so far not materialized after the Star's Matt Tully gave it his best shot in a column last week endorsing the former police officer for the job.