Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Last day

This appears to be my last day as chief, as tomorrow I will transition to public safety director. It will take me a few weeks to get all the loose ends tied up. There are tons of details and practical maters to attend to, such as my office moved and my gear cleared out. You accumulate a lot of stuff over the course of a career. The new interim chiefs, John Huff and Jim Peschong, will have the same transition tasks, and we still have all the usual business to attend to in the process--particularly the budget.

Ironically, last night's devastating fire at the Lincoln Public Schools District office building occurs immediately before my new role managing police, fire, and 911 begins. Hope that's not an omen.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does the LPS building have a basement and was it at least saved?

Anonymous said...

Tom-Congratulations on your new position. I'm sure it will be an interesting transition, but I know you are fully capable to get things running smoothly and efficiently in short order.

One of my retired fireman friends recently asked me what firefighters and cops have in common. I told him several things thinking he was serious. His answer was "They both want to be firefighters."

I guess you get to do both. Best wishes in this new phase of your long and distinguished career serving the citizens of Lincoln and Lancaster County.

256

Anonymous said...

Hail to the Chief! Kudos on a job extremely well done, in my eyes. Just months ago I discovered your blog and have enjoyed them, and you and your uber-coolness, looking forward to the sheer randomness of subject matter.

Thanks for enligtening, entertaining, and good luck with the new job!

Anonymous said...

Did your PIO recently call an AR-15 an "assault rifle", or did the KOLN scribbler come up with that inaccurate term on their own?

Anonymous said...

Good luck in your new "hat", Chief. As far as I'm concerned you are still the Chief!

Steve said...

Congrats, Chief. In my rush to get you a new photo, I guess I forgot to say that.

Sure a lot of rubber-neckers at LPSDO this evening. One of them nearly ran me over changing two lanes at a time without so much as looking. I didn't get much of a chance to look myself because of the idiot driver. I saluted him, but couldn't tell if he even saw me. His windows were all so darkly tinted, I'm surprised he could even see out. (Maybe that was his problem.)

Anonymous said...

@ 256

God invented Police Officers so firefighters could have heroes.

Tim Hegarty said...

Good luck, Chief. I'm not sure that I can imagine the Lincoln Police Department without Casady at the helm. I hope that the people of Lincoln appreciate what a model agency you helped build. I'm sure you'll bring that same talent to the new position.

Anonymous said...

I hope the LPS fire was an omen. With the article in yesterdays newspaper about the city budget, I think that this new department is a total waste of time to taxpayers.

No offense Chief, but I just don't see a pressing need that Lincoln needs this newly created department. We've done fine since 1970, why change it up again?

Anonymous said...

I know the scanner applications for smart phones are not popular with LPD. However, I was able to listen to the first 65 min or so as the fire dept fought this fire - until they switched to tactical channels.

Can I say how impressive it was to listen to the coordination that took place as resources were organized and marshaled to fight this fire.

The female Assistant Chief who ran the command center did just an amazing job managing what turned into 20+ different trucks and who knows how many different teams. The safety coordination around the effort along with the additional complications that wind and lightening added to this was fantastic.

You may have your hands full as you build and update your famous charts and graphs, manage budgets etc - but you clearly are stepping up to head a very, very talented team of professionals who know their jobs well.

The LPSDO building might be a total loss but that should not reflect in any way on the fire department. From what I heard on the scanner, we are in very good hands.

Good Luck chief!

John said...

Chief,
Congratulations on your new position and promotion. I'm praying that you'll still have time to blog. I've learned lots about law enforcement from reading your blog regularly. Thanks.
John N.

Tom Casady said...

9:15 AM-

I hear you. I'll try not to be an anchor. Hold me to it. By the way, just to be clear about this, there is no "department". It's just me: one position.

Tim, and many others-

Thanks very much for the kind words and good wishes. It was tough to lay three badges on the desk this morning, but on the other hand it's a whole new set of challenges and opportunities!

Anonymous said...

Please continue to blog! I have enjoyed this blog more than any other. I know more about the police department than any other city department because of your blog. You've been very informative and I've appreciated it.

Greg Soukup said...

I must admit that I have been neglectful of your blog sir, and for that I apologize. This time of year means racing at Eagle Raceway for me, plus my full-time job and my own blog. I'll try to be more dilligent in my reading.

Congratulations on your assignment. We the people of Lincoln can only hope that your succesor(s) can live up to your excellent reputation.

But, thankfully, you're not leaving us. For that we are grateful.