Following a week of rumor and speculation the Tampico Village board met in a special session on Wednesday night to discuss the resignation of the three officers who served in the Village police department last week.
Tampico Mayor Bruce Peltier started the meeting by telling a packed room that under advice from the village’s attorney he could share very little detailed information on the recent departure of the village’s police officers. Peltier also told the audience that he would not allow public comment to devolve into “a bash session” regarding police officers who had served the community.
The Mayor dispelled several rumors that he said had been circulating on social media. “The rumors ranged from ‘I fired the entire Police Department’ to ‘we are disbanding the entire Police Department’. No one was fired and we are not disbanding the police department.” He went on to say that a search had already begun to fill the vacancies. “We are going to be searching for additional help (for the a police department) and it is not going to take as long as some people might think for us to find it.”
Peltier said the village had received resignation letters from all three current village officers, Sgt. Jim Holloway, Chief Mike Lewis, and Officer Marcus Gaffney on Tuesday, June 6th. He did not comment on what precipitated the resignations. Peltier added, “We decided it was best for us to go our separate ways and we are going to look for some new police officers for the village.”
Mike Lewis was named chief of the Village department in January of 2021 by then Mayor, Kris Hill following the resignation of Chief, Will Lukehart. Lewis was previously a long-serving sheriff’s deputy with the Whiteside County Sheriff’s Department and ran a second unsuccessful bid for Whiteside County Sheriff in 2022.
Following the Mayor’s comments, the board went into closed session for approximately fifteen minutes. Following the session a motion was made by Peltier and unanimously approved to accept the resignation of the three village officers.
Resident, David Fox asked Peltier if there was a timeline in place for new hires. expressing his concern about the lack of police coverage and the current dependence on the Whiteside County Sheriff’s Department to respond to emergencies in a timely manner. “I believe it’s going to be relatively quick,” replied the Mayor. He added that he had personally seen Whiteside County Deputies in the village on numerous occasions in the past week.
Before closing the meeting, Peltier invited those in attendance to attend the next regular board meeting on June 20th to ask questions and express their concerns relating to the situation.
Lewis did not respond to messages from Aroundptown.com.
