Cobb Police Chief Mike Register has been tapped by County Manager Rob Hosack to become the county’s new public safety director.
Hosack will formally present his recommendation Tuesday to the Cobb Board of Commissioners (read his letter to the board here).
Register, who has been police chief since May 2017, was recommended from a group of four individuals to succeed Sam Heaton, a former Cobb fire chief who retired last month.
Register, a retired military veteran who served with Cobb PD for 19 years and later was the the Clayton County Police Chief, is a doctoral candidate in public policy.
Among his initiatives since returning to Cobb include beefing up community-based policing, with a community officer in each of the five police precincts, and holding occasional meetings with faith and other community leaders in the county.
The change at the top of the department comes as commissioners have been pressed by public safety personnel and citizens to improve salary, benefits, retention and other initiatives to address staffing shortages some have said has reached crisis proportions.
Understaffed police and fire services also are among of the primary factors behind the ongoing East Cobb cityhood movement, and are two of the proposed three services included in a bill that will be taken up next year in the Georgia legislature.
At recent commissioners’ meetings, those pushing for more staffing have noted that all five Cobb police precincts have shortages on their patrol “beats.” East Cobb’s Precinct 4 has only eight of 10 beats fully staffed, the least-staffed of all, according to Cobb Fraternal Order of Police head Steven Gaynor.
Cobb currently has 82 police officer openings, and is on pace to lose 100 officers this year. That’s how many applications come in every week, but only a quarter or so of them make the first cut.
Other shortages are in fire/EMS and sheriff’s deputies positions.
The public safety director oversees those functions, along with the county’s 911 dispatch service, emergency management agency and animal services.
In a draft fiscal year 2020 budget proposal released last week, Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce has included recruitment bonuses for public safety, but has decided against budgeting for 40 new police officer and 40 new sheriff’s deputy positions.
Commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb told those gathered at a town hall meeting last month that he’s opposed to filling the public safety director’s post, and prefers each of those agency heads to report to the county manager, as has been done in the past.
Ott was the only commissioner voting against Register for police chief, saying he objected to the selection process and not the candidate.
Proponents of more public safety staffing and better salaries are planning to speak out again at Tuesday’s meeting. It starts at 7 p.m. in the second floor boardroom of the Cobb office building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
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