Darlington City Council Member (At-Large) Bryant Gardner is responding to questions from News13 after Kelvin Washington, who was previously named police chief, was recently named public safety director.
On Tuesday, the mayor and members of Darlington City Council voted unanimously to name Kelvin Washington the new public safety director, according to a statement from Washington provided in a press release from Lisa Chalian-Rock, with the City of Darlington.
“I am excited about this new opportunity and look forward to continuing to serve the citizens of Darlington,” Washington’s statement says. “Chief Cavanaugh will continue to be responsible for the day to day operations of the Darlington Fire Department. We are very fortunate to have someone of Chief Cavanaugh’s caliber as our Fire Chief and I look forward to our continued success.”
In response to a follow-up email to Chalian-Rock on Wednesday, she told News13 that this change was the result of a ‘reorganization’. She said Washington will directly supervise both the police and fire departments, but the fire chief would continue running day-to-day operations in that area of public safety.
News13 then asked Chalian-Rock why council decided to reorganize, if the city planned for the same person to hold both roles or if they planned to eventually hire someone else to be public safety director, and whether Washington would be receiving additional pay.
On Thursday morning, Chalian-Rock responded but did not provide an answer as to why the reorganization took place:
“Mr. Washington will serve as Police Chief and Public Safety Director. There are no plans to hire a separate individual to serve as Police Chief. He did not receive a pay increase for this additional responsibility.”
We then asked again why the reorganization took place. Chalian-Rock then told us we would need to call Washington.
Here is what Washington told us when we spoke to him over the phone about the reorganization:
“The Fire Chief and I met and discussed and we just saw this as an opportunity to enhance the things that they’re doing at the fire department and the city manager and council were all in an agreement. We believe it’s a win win for everyone. The fire chief has a particular set of skills that I don’t have and I have some skills that he doesn’t have. So we’ll put these two together and go from there. We are very fortunate to have someone of this caliber serving as a fire chief and I look forward to his continued success here and we’ll be supporting him 100%, as well as the brave men and women that work under his leadership.”
News13 was unable to reach the following people to ask why this reorganization happened: Mayor Gloria Hines, City Manager Howard Garland, Mayor Pro-Tem (At-Large) Carolyn Bruce, Council Member (Ward 1) Sheila Baccus, Council Member (At-Large) John Milling, Council Member (Ward 2) Elaine Reed, and Council Member (Ward 3) John Segars.
On Thursday evening, Council Member (At-Large) Bryant Gardner told us over the phone that the reason for the reorganization had to do, partially, with Washington’s experience as the U.S. Marshal for the District of South Carolina. Gardner said Washington would be able to help the fire department with things like budgeting, and could take on both roles (police chief and public safety director).
Gardner also told us that because Darlington is a small city, council members felt it would be beneficial to have Washington serve in two roles, rather than paying someone else to serve in the other role.