Police chief Graham expected to step down

 If the call had come from anywhere else, Cedar Rapids Police Chief Greg Graham says he likely would have turned a deaf ear.

But the call was from Ocala, Fla., and Graham is listening.

“If another job opened up, the only job I would consider going back to is in Ocala,” said Graham, who has been nominated by Ocala Mayor Kent Guinn to be the city's next police chief. The City Council in the north-central Florida communty of 56,315 will vote on the nomination Tuesday.

Graham, 49, said Friday he hasn't made a final decision on whether to accept the job if the council approves the nomination.

“If you have never lived away from the Midwest or you weren't born and raised here, I don't think you have a true appreciation of how great it is here,” said Graham.

Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomerantz said Friday he expects Graham to take the job and informed the City Council it will need to start a nationwide search to for a new chief.

Pomerantz said he expects current commanders in the Cedar Rapids department to apply for the job.

He said Graham, who started as chief about a week before the Flood of 2008, has done an “excellent” job for the city and will be missed

Graham said he feels a sense of loyalty to the Ocala department because it gave him a shot at being an officer. He was on the force there 25 years, the last six as deputy chief.

But he also said Cedar Rapids gave him his dream job of being a police chief.

“I think one of the things I regret the most is that I didn't get to see this town before the flood,” said Graham.

Graham was instrumental in the installation of traffic cameras on Interstate 380 and at several intersections in the city and doesn't regret his decision.

“It is a safer today to drive through Cedar Rapids than prior to these cameras going up,” said Graham.

Other hallmarks of Graham's tenure were a noticeable crackdown on crime after Police Officer Tim Davis was assaulted in March 2009; the opening of a police substation in the Wellington Heights Neighborhood; a closer attention paid to liquor license renewals; and an overhall of the department's community policing strategy that replaced a decades-old quadrant system with one that focuses on three defines areas - East, West and Central - with their own dispatching headquarters.

Graham credited members of his department for any positive change that has happened under his watch.

“I'm a much better person than I was before I got here, I am a much better police officer, I am a much better public servant because of my exposure to the men and women in this police organization,” said Graham.

He said he was very impressed by the welcome he received after his move.

“Oh my gosh, I don't know if I would get that reception from anywhere else,” Graham said.

Graham replaced Mike Klappholz, who retired after nine years in the job. Before Klappholz, Bud Byrne served as chief for almost eight years.

Rick Smith of The Gazette contributed to this story.

UPDATE: Police Chief Greg Graham, who took over command of the Police Department here right before the June 2008 flood, is expected to return from where he came, the Ocala, Fla., Police Department, Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said Friday.

Pomeranz said the mayor of Ocala, Kent Guinn, has nominated Graham to be Ocala's new police chief and that the Ocala City Council has placed on its Jan. 3 agenda a resolution to hire Graham.

“When I took the job here I did so with the intent to finish my career in the Midwest,” Graham said in a statement released Friday by the Cedar Rapids Police Department. ”I always thought that if the job opened in Ocala, it would be the only one that I would even consider taking. I also believed that it would be many years before an opening would occur. The Cedar Rapids Police Department employees and the citizens of Cedar Rapids have made this decision very difficult for me to make.”

Graham had served on the Ocala department for 25 years, the last six as deputy chief, before joining the Cedar Rapids department in 2008.

Ocala.com reported Friday morning that Graham will attend the Jan. 3 meeting at the Ocala council when the mayor's nomination will be voted on.

On Friday morning, Pomeranz said he informed the Cedar Rapids City Council that he and the council will be in the hunt for a new police chief for Cedar Rapids.

The search will be a national one, but one that surely will include current commanders in the Cedar Rapids department, Pomeranz said.

He said Graham has done an “excellent” job for the city of Cedar Rapids and he said he will be missed.

Graham, 49, has never lost what has been something of a perpetual Florida tan since arriving in Cedar Rapids, and he's been asked more than once since arriving here if he will be returning to Florida.