Watertown Police Chief retires

Abbey Nutter, The Lebanon Democrat, Tenn.
Updated ·2 min read

Mar. 23—Watertown Police Department Chief Bill Laney retired on Tuesday.

"Bill felt like it was time, and I did also," Watertown Mayor Mike Jennings said.

Jennings announced Laney's retirement during the Watertown City Council meeting Tuesday night.

"We talked about it," Jennings said. "Bill's served this community well. He's served it a lot of years and it's tough being a police officer in a small town because you know everybody. If you get called out to go after somebody and you look at them and say, 'Well, I was just talking to them in a restaurant yesterday,' it's tough."

Assistant chief Michael Henderlight was appointed as interim chief of the department.

"I fully expect to make him the full-time police chief in a few days," Jennings said.

Project updates

Watertown is currently working on gathering funding for its sewer project after approving a $5,419,580 bid from Conrad Construction during its Jan. 31 meeting. The contract's approval was contingent on the city being able to find funding.

"We're getting toward the end of the 90 days that the bid is good," Jennings said. "We're at about day 55 or 59. I've tried to keep (the city council) posted. I've talked to the sewer revolving loan fund people. I've talked to the USDA people. I've talked to the Tennessee Municipal Bond Fund people."

With the approval of the bid in January, the council also requested an initial change order that would eliminate the lining of the service lines for every connection along the 8-inch or 15-inch mains that exist. The change order would bring the total cost down to around $3.4 million.

Jennings asked the city council to approve the hiring of a financial consultant to help the city find the best long-term financing option.

"The more pressing thing is that we're going to need some interim financing because we can't get the long term in place (before the 90 days is up)."

Jennings said tat the consultant would be able to help the city find both the interim and the long-term financing for the project.

"I think that it's an excellent idea," Alderman Steve Casey said. "We probably should have done this a month ago."

The city council unanimously approved hiring a financial consultant for the sewer project.

The city's repaving project is on hold until sewer line installation is complete.

"We have $1 million — or have access to $1 million," Jennings said. "I want to put some more money with that to pave as many streets as we can."