KIPTON — The village will have a police force again.

After months of relying on county sheriff’s deputies for law enforcement, Kipton Mayor Bob Meilander is reconstituting a department that effectively dissolved after an investigation of the former chief, the theft conviction of his temporary replacement and the resignation of the rest of the department.

High on his list of priorities for the new department is eliminating the village’s reputation as a speed trap.

“We want people to come back to town and not be afraid of being hassled by police officers,” Meilander said.

Meilander was president of the Village Council last year when the Police Department fell apart, starting with the suspension of then-police Chief Pablo Cruz in February 2007 after he was reimbursed twice for $98 worth of film he purchased for the village’s 2006 Christmas party.

Cruz was suspended for months and as he was about to return to duty, he was suspended again, this time for allegedly keeping officers on the department’s books who were never hired by the village.

Cruz resigned in September as part of an agreement that the village not pursue charges against him, but while he was under suspension, his replacement, Lt. Robert Wolfkill, was suspended after being charged with theft for stealing from an elderly woman in Huron County while he was an officer there.

Wolfkill has since pleaded guilty to the charges and is awaiting sentencing. He is no longer with the department. The remainder of the department’s officers, who were paid $1 a year, also resigned in the chaos.

Meilander said he envisions a much smaller force than the about seven part-time police officers who worked under Cruz. He said the village hasn’t been the speed trap many believed it to be, with the reputation for officers pulling over people for as little as 1 mph over the limit.

“Kipton’s not a speed trap,” he said. “We’ve got a bad reputation, but we’re trying to change it.”

Helping with that is former Geneva, police Chief Jim McManus, now the head of Lorain County Community College’s criminal justice program.

McManus said he has agreed to volunteer over the next three months to help the village put together a new, more professional department. The village wants to avoid officers with something to prove.

“One of the keys will be to find some professional law enforcement officers who may have retired and want to keep their certifications,” he said.

McManus also acknowledged that it will take a lot of work for the department to shed its poor public image.

“The department’s officers in the past were considered to be very unfriendly and unprofessional,” he said. “The residents felt like they were being picked on at some times.”

But he also said once the department is restaffed and back on the beat, it will mean that the officers will write tickets sometimes.

“There will still be some tickets written I’m sure,” McManus said. “You can’t have people driving through a village at 50, 60 mph in a 35-mph zone, but it’s not going to be the speed trap they were famous for.”

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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