By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post

GREAT BEND — The Great Bend Police Department lost its highest-ranking employee Monday night after the city council voted to suspend Police Chief Cliff Couch. The department is down to 25 employees with one of the officers recently hired and still in training.

City Administrator Howard Partington now is filling in as the active police chief. A city ordinance assigns the city administrator as the active police chief if the current chief is out. Partington served as acting chief after longtime chief Dean Akings retired at the end of 2014 until Couch was hired in the spring of 2015.

Partington is in communication with the department’s three police lieutenants to keep the department running as smoothly as possible to serve the community.

Police Chief Couch was suspended without pay according to the notice, because he made “false or reckless” accusation about Partington and Mayor Mike Allison. The notice also mentioned Couch stated he couldn’t settle the differences between him and Partington and the chief failed to do an investigation into a harassing workplace.

Couch brought questions of misconduct and unethical procedures by the city administration to the Great Bend City Council on June 5, 2017. Couch awaits a date for his hearing to make his rebuttal to the council’s decision to suspend him.