Police department may face changes

HIGH SPRINGS – With the High Springs police chief Steve Holley on a month-long vacation and Sgt. Antoine Sheppard taking up the role of acting chief, officials have dismissed or remained silent about the possibility that Holley might step back down to the position of sergeant at the end of his leave.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Holley said in a Feb. 3 interview.

Holley met with City Manager Ed Booth last week, right before taking his time off, to discuss reorganizing the police department, he said. He declined to go into further detail.

“I can’t say anything more than that, really,” Holley said.

Booth did confirm an upcoming workshop to look at the possibility of reorganizing the police department.

“We will be looking at the whole organization of the department,” Booth said.

Commissioners will compare the organization of the High Springs Police Department (HSPD) with other police departments in cities with 5,000 to 6,000 residents to determine if changes should be made to improve services, he said.

“Our city currently lacks a detective and an accident investigator,” he said.

Holley built up 30 days of vacation time by covering other officers’ shifts, Booth said in a previous interview. He is taking the full 30 days.

“I put in a time off request, I really can’t talk about it,” he said.

Alachua County Today made a public records request for all email correspondence between Booth and Holley, but was unable to find any.

Florida’s Sunshine Law, passed in 1967, establishes a basic right of access to governmental meetings and records, including any emails to or from an official email account. The law does not cover informal, in-person meetings, however.

“I don’t use email for this exact reason,” Booth said, when asked about public records of conversations between him and Holley.

Holley took over after the interim chief, William Benck, resigned in January 2012 over disputes with the interim city manager, Jeri Langman.

After Benck left, Langman, over the span of three days, promoted Holley to sergeant and then again to police chief, which could have been in violation of the city’s contract with the police union, the North Florida Police Benevolent Association.

The contract establishes a process that has to be followed for a promotion, including a written exam and other specific procedures. These procedures were not followed, said Jim Troiano, former High Springs police chief who helped negotiate the contract.  

The memo advertising the position for police chief said the position requires a four-year degree. Holley has a two-year degree from Saint Petersburg College, formerly Saint Petersburg Junior College.

After Langman promoted Holley, Commissioner Bob Barnas, then vice mayor, said in a commission meeting that he would bring a sense of community and a new managerial style to the city.

Bob Barnas, Linda Gestrin and Dean Davis, then mayor, who had a majority on the commission, later made Langman the permanent city manager in February 2012.

During Holley’s tenure as chief of police, multiple complaints have been filed against him by his coworkers.

Angela Stone, currently working for the Office of the City Clerk, worked as an administrative assistant to the High Springs Police Department in 2012. In August of that year, she filed a complaint against Holley for creating a culture of fear in the workplace.

“My work environment is a hostile and an uncomfortable one, and it is and becomes worse daily,” she wrote.

Holley walked into Stone’s office with two others and asked if it intimidated her, she wrote.

Stone also claimed Holley went through her desk in order to find a key to the evidence room.

Former HSPD officer Adam Joy also filed a complaint against Holley last year with several grievances, including favoritism to personal friends.

According to Joy’s complaint, Holley gave friend and former shift partner, officer Ryan Scott, a key to the department and access to passwords.

“It appears more that officer Scott runs the department instead of Chief Holley,” he wrote. Holley confided everything in Scott, leaving other officers and supervisors in the dark, Joy complained.

The city received a letter of resignation from Scott on Tuesday, Feb. 4.

#     #     #

Email cmckinney@

alachuatoday.com