McComb selectmen hired three police officers and promoted two firefighters during a special called meeting Thursday.
All three officers were previously interviewed and approved for hire by former police chief Damian Gatlin, and two of the three are waiting for training at the state police academy.
“All the paperwork was done by Chief Gatlin, but I don’t know what took so long to hire them,” said Police Chief Garland Ward, who was sworn into office on Monday. “I just went on through with the process.”
Ward said he interviewed the applicants as well.
All three officers were hired unanimously.
Officer Scote Renfro was hired as a narcotics officer.
“He’s been in law enforcement for a while. He’s worked for narcotics over the years, and he will be a good asset for us,” Ward said.
Christopher Ball and Christopher Clowers were both hired as police officers and will go to the state police academy in September.
Ward said he was enthusiastic about the hirings, which reduce police vacancies from 12 to nine.
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In another matter, a discussion about paying the monthly bill to house city inmates at the county jail brought concerns over jail capacity.
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said he heard the county was no longer taking inmates from the city because the jail was full.
The board asked Ward to confirm this, but he said the jail was still accepting inmates with felony charges, as far as he knew.
Ward said the issue wasn’t brought up at a meeting between the police and sheriff’s departments on Wednesday.
Sheriff James Brumfield said Thursday the jail is still taking city inmates.
After the discussion, the board voted to pay $4,800 to the sheriff’s office for housing inmates in May.
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The board also promoted two firefighters during the specially called meeting.
“These gentlemen are the cream of the crop,” Fire Department Chief Gary McKenzie said. “They met all of the challenges, met the standards.”
James Robert Troutman was promoted to lieutenant and Shaun Casey Green was appointed as engineer. McKenzie said these two positions had previously been temporarily filled, noting that Green had previously filled his new position before being appointed, but he said he wanted to fill the positions permanently.
McKenzie praised both firefighters but specifically pointed out that Troutman made a perfect score on the civil service test required for the promotion.
“I want to call out Robert Troutman. He had a perfect score on the promotion exams, which is very, very rare,” he said. “It shows he put a lot of time and effort into preparing, and he is well prepared for the position.”
