Hampshire acting police chief named police chief

Hampshire has just hired a new police chief — well, sort of.

Brian Thompson, 53, had been acting chief for 3½ years, and on Thursday the village board appointed him to the permanent position, with a unanimous vote. The village did not run a separate search to find a chief.

“We knew he was the one we wanted and we finally just had that discussion with him and made it official,” Village Administrator Doug Maxeiner said. “He’s been doing the job for three years, he’s doing an admirable job at that and there’s no reason to make a change.”

Thompson, a 31-year-veteran of the force, has spent most of his law enforcement career in Hampshire, though he did work as a part-time officer in Geneva from 1980 through 1981.

He rose through the ranks, becoming a sergeant for 10 years before earning the rank of lieutenant for another 10 years.

The village had offered the job to Thompson when it first became available, but he declined.

“I just really wasn’t interested in the position,” Thompson said. The village approached him once more and this time he accepted.

“We really needed a full police chief in there, and if he wasn’t willing to take it, we needed to talk about where we were headed in the future,” Maxeiner said. “Three years of an acting chief is really longer than we would have liked to have seen that position.”

As chief, Thompson will manage a department of 11 sworn officers. He will also be making $95,000 a year, up from $85,288, Maxeiner said.

His primary goal is to keep everything running smoothly in the department without resorting to layoffs.

“(We’re) just trying to make it through the financial constraints that we currently have right now and try to do as much with as little as possible and just survive,” Thompson said.