Chief Clay Walker
Age: 56
Served as police chief since 1999
Life before Manalapan: 21 years with North Palm Beach Police Department
Biggest accomplishments: Improving Manalapan Police’s use of technology, including automated record-keeping, license plate cameras, and finger print readers in police cars.
Looking ahead: Possibly a new civilian career
Acting Chief Lt. Carmen Mattox
Age: 48
Biggest challenges: Hiring the best officers, soliciting support from town businesses, persuading elected officials to provide the best possible training to the force.
Timeline: History of Manlapan Police Department.
By Steve Plunkett
Manalapan Police Chief Clay Walker has added the word “former’’ to his job title.
It was Walker’s second retirement, the first being when he left the North Palm Beach Public Safety Department as a lieutenant after 21 years to become Manalapan’s chief in 1999. It likely won’t be his last, he said.
“I’m too young to not be doing something,” said Walker, 56, adding that he was exploring private-sector opportunities. He was given a $10,000 retirement gift and three months’ health insurance. As chief he earned $86,000 a year.
“Mayor Basil Diamond praised Walker at the Dec. 20 Town Commission meeting for keeping Manalapan’s crime rate low.
“He has brought our department from a department that was functioning but was not what it needed to be, and over the course of 12 years he brought us into the 21st century ahead of most of the other communities of our size,” Diamond said.
Walker supervised a lieutenant, eight police officers, and four full-time and four part-time dispatchers. The department’s $1.35 million budget makes up 42 percent of the town’s total expenses.
Walker said early in his police career he hoped to become a chief.
“Manalapan gave me that opportunity. I will always be forever thankful,” he said.
When he took over the department, he said, colleagues asked if he viewed the small-town job as a stepping-stone.
“There’s nothing more enjoyable than working with a community that you can reach out and touch the individual residents and be successful,” Walker said. “We do so many small things, so many nuances that you can’t afford to do at a larger agency sometimes.
“It’s been a great ride.’’
Walker’s last presentation involved his successor, Lt. and now acting Police Chief Carmen Mattox. Both men also worked together in North Palm Beach.
“I’d like to give him his chief’s badge that he will begin wearing probably about 5 o’clock on Jan. 2,” when Walker’s retirement was to take effect, Walker said.
The former chief emailed town residents Dec. 2 giving them a month’s notice that he was retiring.
Walker spent his rookie year with the Clewiston Police Department, where he grew up, after getting a bachelor’s degree in criminology from Florida State University.
His last year was not without friction from Manalapan’s leaders. Commissioner Donald Brennan asked for a cost comparison that showed town residents pay $5,720 per-capita for police services while those in South Palm Beach pay $614.
Commissioner Robert Evans studied the department and asked Walker to devise a schedule that would have seven officers instead of eight.
Commissioner Howard Roder at one meeting urged that Walker be fired, saying he lacked administrative, organizational and people skills, then at a later meeting suggested trimming the lieutenant position instead of an officer position.
Commissioner David Cheifetz and residents Peter Isaac and John Murphy examined police hiring practices after Isaac complained he was treated poorly by a younger officer during a code enforcement action. Walker later changed his application package to note that five years’ experience was preferred.
Commissioners also sought bids for contracting out the police dispatch system.
They took no action after getting only one bid, from Ocean Ridge for roughly eight times what South Palm Beach pays Lantana for dispatching.
The towns have since met four times to fine-tune the dispatch proposal.
Comments