In the biggest news since Lodge 614 President David James announced that he was leaving the Police Department to become the role of Commissioner of the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation, the River City Fraternal of Police has elected a new President and Vice President.In the event that a President of a Lodge cannot fulfill his full term, the National By-Laws state that the President shall automatically be replaced by the Vice President. This normally would not be a problem except that our Vice President Gary Fischer had recently retired with 32 years of combined service on the Jefferson County Police Department and the Louisville Metro Police Department. Gary has since taken a job as a Deputy with Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. We suddenly found ourselves in a very unusual situation. We had to replace our top two FOP Officers and we had to do it quickly. The National By-Laws further regulated that the only people eligible to run had to come from the Board of Directors and not a Member wide election.We were fortunate that three fine candidates stepped forward in a willingness to take the helm and lead our organization. The candidates for President were Richard Dotson, Luke Howard and Todd Shaw. All three candidates were former Executive Board Members from Lodge 6 & 14 and current Board members of Lodge 614. The Board of Directors listened to the thoughts and ideas of the future for our Lodge from these candidates on January 3, 2004 and then went out among the membership afterwards to try and gauge who and what the working Officers on the street wanted to lead our Lodge. River City FOP is the 11th largest FOP Lodge in the Nation. We are an integral part of the Largest Police Labor Organization in the Country. The Lodge Leaders are facing contract negotiations starting in March with a Mayor that has already drawn a line in the sand and publicly stated numerous times even after his failed attempt to break our contract that we will not get a raise and we will pay for our health insurance.The Lodge Board of Directors gathered Tuesday two hours before the January General Meeting to choose the new leaders of our organization.
The River City Fraternal Order of Police is proud to announce that our new President is Richard L. Dotson. President Dotson is a 42 year veteran of LPD and LMPD. President Dotson will be the first retiree to hold this position. Our Lodge has a combined membership of almost 1200 working Officers and over 1000 retired Officers. Richard is a very strong capable leader that has served 8 years on the Executive Board of Lodge 6 and has been a FOP Member his entire career. The Vice President was chosen between two candidates that both held positions on the Board of Directors of Lodge 614. In a second election State Lodge Trustee Jon Pugh was chosen over Trustee Lonnie Gullion as the new Vice President of Louisville River City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge # 614. Jon currently works as a Patrol Officer in the 5th District and has worked as a Deputy Sheriff before coming to LPD in 1995. He brings with him continuous service as a member of the Board of Director's and most recently he served as our State Lodge Trustee and as the Lodge Parliamentarian and as one of our Legislative Agents in Frankfort.We would like to take this time to congratulate all of the candidates for their willingness to give up a large portion of their lives to serve their Brothers and Sisters. We expect excellence from our newly elected leaders and wish them well in their endeavors.We will be taking nominations in February for anyone that is willing to step up and fill vacancies as Alternate Delegate, State Lodge Trustee and Financial Secretary.