The City of Urbana, Illinois seems to have finally settled on a new police chief after becoming aware of the vacancy more than fourteen months ago.
On Monday evening, Urbana Mayor Diane Marlin had her Communications Specialist send out a press release which named retired Norfolk, VA Police Chief Larry Boone as Urbana’s sole finalist in their search. The press release was sent out by email just minutes after the Urbana City Council came out of a closed session to discuss an item which only had a single word description on the publicly posted meeting agenda: “Personnel”.
Given the lightning fast timing of the press release and the lateness of the hour, it seems likely that the Council was discussing the Police Chief appointment in their closed session, and that the decision to choose Boone had essentially already been made before the discussion took place.
The previous Police Chief for Urbana, Bryant Seraphin, announced his resignation on January 20th, 2022, after just thirty months of serving in the position. For more than a year, the previous Deputy Chief, Richard Surles, has been serving as Interim Chief of Police.
The full press release, sent by Mayor Marlin’s Communications Specialist Bridget Broihahn on April 3rd at 9:23pm, is provided below. The press release does not indicate what course of action might be taken if Boone is not ultimately hired for the position.
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