{"id":22545,"date":"2020-04-22T20:56:19","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T02:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=64344"},"modified":"2020-04-22T20:56:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T02:56:19","slug":"kremmling-officials-vote-to-find-new-police-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/kremmling-officials-vote-to-find-new-police-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Kremmling officials vote to find new police chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/KPDUpdate-shn-010320-1-1-1024x682.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/KPDUpdate-shn-010320-1-1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/KPDUpdate-shn-010320-1-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/KPDUpdate-shn-010320-1-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/KPDUpdate-shn-010320-1-1-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/KPDUpdate-shn-010320-1-1-2048x1364.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>Kremmling Police Chief Jamie Lucas reacts during a special town council meeting at Kremmling Town Hall in December.<\/strong><br \/><em>Eli Pace \/ epace@skyhinews.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Kremmling Town Council elected not to reappoint Police Chief Jamie Lucas on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>When the town board began its meeting, Mayor Grover Pryor said there was a public comment from Lucas and gave council members time to read a letter he wrote to themselves.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unclear what the letter said because the board didn\u2019t comment on it or read it aloud, nor was it attached to the agenda.<\/p>\n<p>During what appeared to be a series of routine town appointments later in the meeting, council members voted 6-0 not to reappoint Lucas to the position of police chief. Instead, the council directed Town Manager Dan Stoltman to find an interim police chief and start searching for a new hire.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row shn-donation shn-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/02\/shn-logo-2x-wht.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.skyhinews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/02\/shn-logo-2x-wht.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe have an obligation to provide a full police department as quickly as possible moving forward,\u201d Trustee Erik Woog said. \u201cI think the logical thing to do would be, if there\u2019s any possibility, to retain what we have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Council members didn\u2019t comment on why they chose not to reappoint Lucas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Stoltman said he would begin the search for a new chief immediately after council members emphasized the urgency of filling the position.<\/p>\n<p>Stoltman added that he would see if Sgt. Lawley, who was recently hired back part-time to the police force after leaving last year, would be interested in being the interim chief.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStarting tomorrow, I will start by reaching out internally and then I\u2019ll discuss with our attorney about reaching out to surrounding areas or potentially putting out a small job ad out,\u201d Stoltman said.<\/p>\n<p>Lucas was placed on administrative leave in December after the 14th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office began investigating allegations Lucas mishandled an animal abuse case, in which three juveniles were alleged to have killed a cat on a property outside Kremmling town limits in October.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of an investigation initiated by the Grand County Sheriff\u2019s Office and completed by the Fraser Winter Park Police Department, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/news\/kremmling-police-chief-charged-with-multiple-counts-of-misconduct-false-reporting\/\">District Attorney\u2019s Office charged Lucas<\/a> with four counts each of first degree official misconduct, second degree official misconduct and official oppression, and three counts of false reporting to authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Lucas is scheduled to appear in court at 8:45 a.m. on May 5 for his arraignment.<\/p>\n<p>On Facebook Wednesday evening after the meeting, Lucas thanked his supporters and maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough I am deeply disappointed in the board\u2019s decision, I can walk with my head up and know I refused to over look (sic), based on my knowledge of the DA\u2019s office, unethical practices, possibly unlawful conduct, and a sheriff who has lied,\u201d the post said.<\/p>\n<p>Immediate attempts to contact the town and Lucas were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor\u2019s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested a trustee abstained from the vote. The mayor doesn\u2019t vote unless there\u2019s a tie.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/news\/kremmling-officials-vote-to-find-new-police-chief\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kremmling Police Chief Jamie Lucas reacts during a special town council meeting at Kremmling Town Hall in December.Eli Pace \/ epace@skyhinews.com Kremmling Town Council elected not to reappoint Police Chief Jamie Lucas on Wednesday. When the town board began its meeting, Mayor Grover Pryor said there was a public comment from Lucas and gave council [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 12:42:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}