'No Deadline' on Naming Chester Police Chief, Mayor Says

The Chester Borough Police Department has been without a fulltime chief for more than two months.

And that’s fine with Mayor Bob Davis, who said, “there’s no specific deadline” for selecting a top cop.

On June 30 former Chief Andre Kedrowitsch retired, and Sgt. David Jara was named the officer in charge the following day. A timetable of interviews and the selection process was created by the council on June 18.

Since then, the mayor and council have received feedback from three former New Jersey police chiefs and reviewed medical and psychological tests, Davis said.

Sgts. Jara and Tim Carey are the remaining two candidates, and the borough has not gone outside the department in its quest to name a new chief, Davis said.

“The (officers) are doing fine,” Jara said about the department’s morale, “and we’re operating like Chief Kedrowitsch was still here. But they are a bit anxious and would like to know who’s going to be the new chief.”

The officer hired to bring headcount back to where it was when Kedrowitsch was on the force could be ready to take on the roads by himself in the beginning of October, Jara said, but it seems like the department “keeps getting busier and busier.”

“Everyone believes we should have a chief in place,” as opposed to an Officer in Charge, Jara said.

The council had originally planned to make its decision, now that the vetting process is over, at either the first or second meeting of September. The first meeting was held Tuesday, Sept. 3, with the next one scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 17.

Currently, however, there is no date set for the announcement of the new chief.