A Brookhaven alderman and a consultant to the city have taken issue with a recent column published by The Daily Leader.

On Sunday, March 17, The Daily Leader published an opinion column online titled, “Will the end of chief drama restore civility in city boardroom?” 

In the column, the author wrote about the Brookhaven Board of Aldermen’s recent move to make the Chief of Police position an appointed one — the second time this has been done by the board in recent months.

“What should be upsetting about this whole saga is the way it unfolded and the lack of decorum in our city meetings,” the column read. The columnist wrote that in his opinion, Alderman-at-large Don Underwood has a personal vendetta against Police

Chief Kenneth Collins; that both Underwood and Collins had acted with “middle school” language; that voting on something not on the agenda may not be “right”; that although Collins responded in-kind to the alderman-at-large, his responses could be justified; and that he hoped voters would choose new options for the board come election time.

On Tuesday, Bill Harmening — the man hired by the City to evaluate the police department in 2023 and write new policies for it — responded to the column via email. Later that day, Underwood took a portion of his report time at the city’s regular board meeting to address the column, as well.

Harmening wrote “to correct a couple errors in (the) story.” He said the policies were not written for an appointed chief, but “for an elected chief who recognizes that his employees are city employees, not the Chief’s employees. So the policies properly include the Mayor and City Board in decisions related to hiring, discipline, firing, and pay. The policies do NOT include the mayor or City Board in any decisions related to policing.”

He also said the PD policies were not filed with the Department of Public Safety, and that no department does this. He said he knew from Collins’ own statements and from notes in the files that the policies had originated in Texas, “were never properly configured, were never made consistent with MS law, included policies that violated MS law, and frankly, were dangerous in a number of ways.”

Harmening concluded his response by saying BPD had many problems, but also “has the potential to be an effective and professional police department. The first step in that process is to have a proper set of policies and procedures that will guide those officers. The chief has a practice of attacking anyone, including me, who criticizes him. My only goal all along was to actually help him rebuilt his department into one the citizens of Brookhaven can be proud of.”

During the board meeting, Underwood said he wanted to take part of his report time to address the opinion piece. He began by saying he was 68 years old, had recently buried his wife, and was not going to put up with anyone lecturing or chastising him. He recounted confrontations between himself and Collins, as well as Collins and others, saying, “The common denominator in these problems is not me. I think you can pick out who the aggressor is.”

Underwood said he had wanted an appointed chief of police since before he was elected to the board, and at that time had nothing personal against Collins. Ward 4 Alderman Jeff Henning later added that he, too, had been for an appointed chief “since day one,” and had no vendetta against Collins — but in fact had voted for him twice.

The alderman-at-large took issue with the opinion column, saying it “insinuated I don’t care about this city,” and listed several positive things he had introduced or championed to help or improve Brookhaven and its citizenry, punctuating his comments repeatedly with, “But I guess I don’t care about Brookhaven.”

Underwood’s complete comments can be watched here, with comments beginning at the 14:38 mark and continuing until 32:28.

Harmening’s complete email can be read here.

Chief Collins was not in the boardroom at the time of the comments, having excused himself after his report near the beginning of the meeting.