VERO BEACH — Vero Beach Police Chief Don Dappen said “no” to City Manager Jim O’Connor’s request that he resign Thursday, according to city officials.
On Thursday afternoon, Vero Beach City Council members were notified by O’Connor that he had asked Chief Dappen to resign — giving him the option to retire rather than be terminated — but Dappen declined to leave his post.
“Mr. O’Connor told me that he had asked Chief Dappen to resign and that he refused,” said Councilman Brian Heady.
Heady said he had met with O’Connor more than once since O’Connor took the helm of the city about Dappen’s performance and what seemed to be open insubordination by the chief. Department heads are under the authority of the City Manager, not the City Council.
By late Thursday afternoon, word of the move had spread amongst the local law enforcement community and personnel with connections to the Indian River Sheriff’s Office were talking about it, emailing and texting the news.
Councilwoman Tracy Carroll heard about O’Connor asking Dappen to resign while she was greeting members of the public at an event Thursday evening. Carroll said she contacted O’Connor and she later verified that Dappen had been asked to resign and that he refused.
Carroll and Vice Mayor Pilar Turner had also had recent confrontations with Dappen over his recalcitrant attitude toward cutting the 2011-2012 police department budget.
Dappen was hired on by the City of Vero Beach more than 34 years ago and in his tenure served as the long-time Deputy Police Chief under former Chief and later City Manager Jim Gabbard, who retired in October 2010.
Nearly 10 years past minimum eligible retirement age, Dappen is already enrolled in the department’s Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP). He has reportedly been given until Dec. 1 to retire.
“Mr. O’Connor told me that he had checked with our legal department to make sure he was within his rights and everything was handled properly,” Heady said. “He said he wanted to do this nicely.”
As a member of management, Dappen is not represented by the Coastal Police Benevolent Association union and is not covered by the PBA contract with the City of Vero Beach.
The police chief has been chastised publicly in recent months by the Vero Beach City Council and several of his management decisions have been overturned by O’Connor in his first days in office.
The most recent and very public dust-up occurred Tuesday night when a new reporting procedure for the 10 companies on a rotation to service the city’s towing needs was revealed to O’Connor by a citizen from the public podium. O’Connor had not been notified of the major change and the documents — which carry the penalty of being removed from the towing company rotation — had not been submitted to Acting City Attorney Wayne Coment for review by Dappen prior to the Oct. 1 implementation.
Dappen and O’Connor also butted heads about the Vero Beach Police Department budget in July. City Council members were displeased with communications which went out from police personnel to the public about proposed cuts to the police budget — cuts that the City Council was not yet aware of at the time.
Long-time law enforcement officer and former Sheriff Gary Wheeler stated publicly in July that he thought Dappen should be fired over the budget battle and Dappen bristled during a public meeting at Wheeler’s statements.
As of February when VeroNews.com’s sister publication, Vero Beach 32963, reviewed salaries and banked sick and vacation time of the city’s department heads, Dappen was earning a salary of $115,518 and had nearly 12 weeks of accrued sick time and 59 days of accrued vacation time coming to him.
Upon his retirement, Dappen could receive up to $88,000 in cash payout for his banked sick and vacation time. On top of that, he would benefit from the city’s police pension program.
Public records state that police officers receive “3 percent credit for each service year.”
Based upon 35 years of service, Dappen’s pension would be as much as his current salary as police chief. His pension payments would be an estimated $9,600 per month. Also, the City of Vero Beach taxpayers are required to subsidize health insurance benefits for retirees for the rest of their lives.
Deputy Police Chief David Currey would be the next in line for the job of Chief of Police should O’Connor decide to promote from within.
This story will be updated as further information becomes available.
