Guadalupe negotiating contract with new Public Safety Director

The City of Guadalupe is in final contract negotiations with the city’s top candidate for Public Safety Director despite recent news reports of questionable behavior in his professional work history.

Guadalupe City Administrator Cruz Ramos has confirmed that former Southwestern College Police Chief Michael Cash remains the city’s preferred candidate to replace the retiring Gary Hoving as Public Safety Director.

The Guadalupe City Council was expected to approve the hiring of Michael Cash at its meeting Tuesday night but instead took the matter of his hiring into closed session without announcing a decision afterwards.

Various published reports include allegations that Michael Cash covered up sexual assaults, misused police funds, made inaccurate crime log reports and fired his duty weapon in a police locker room.

City Administrator Cruz Ramos says Cash remains the city’s top candidate for the job that overseas both the Guadalupe Police Department and Guadalupe Fire Department with an annual salary of about $100,000.

“It was a very thorough, very extensive and comprehensive process”, Ramos said of the city’s recruitment process for the job, “we went through a whole recruitment and a background investigation and all of the other exams that are usually attributed to a position of this nature.”

Gary Hoving’s last day on the job is this Friday and City Administrator Ramos says there is a plan in place to run both the Police Department and Fire Department while a replacement is found.