HUBBARD TOWNSHIP — A township and police official noted the need for a detective on major cases as part of why trustees should consider restoring an officer’s detective status.

At Tuesday’s regular trustees meeting, police Chief Brenda Freeman requested that Sgt. Michael Orr be named as a working detective to “make him whole,” adding that she wasn’t sure if it not being done was a possible oversight.

“A detective is needed in case we would happen to have a major incident,” Freeman said. “At this point in time, under his status now, he would not be required to come out (in the field). We do need to have somebody in that status, and that should be him.”

Trustee Jason Tedrow said one of the conversations officials had involved restoring a position like the one proposed for Orr. He added that he would have concerns if the trustees didn’t put him in such a position, noting Orr’s status as the department’s senior officer and previous experience with the job.

Freeman clarified that by being a working detective, Orr would still be on the road and wouldn’t receive an additional pay rate.

“It’s more like a hybrid position that he would work and do the detective work, it’s basically a title, there’s no extra pay rate,” Freeman said. “It gives him the ability to come out if something happens — he is our designated detective.”

Freeman said there would be overtime regardless of who was assigned the role, in response to Trustee Monica Baker’s questions about it being a possibility.

“If it’s not him, it would be me, and at the same time, if it’s not him, who already has some of the training and experience to do it, you’re telling me you’re going to have somebody with maybe one year (of) experience showing up to a call,” Freeman said. “They’re the ones that’s going to have to take care of that entire incident, and that can’t be a thing.”

Fiscal Officer Jennifer Evans recalled the township previously having a hybrid detective position, which was eliminated before a performance audit that said the township didn’t need it.

“But then we got (the position), and at some point we said we no longer have a detective position,” Evans said. “If that’s the case and you guys want to go into that, I’m just trying to protect the township by saying the township needs to pass a resolution. You need to pass a resolution to say we want to add this job back into our realm of job titles.”

Evans said if they reinstated Orr’s detective status, it wouldn’t have any bearing because the township doesn’t have a position in which to put him.

Tedrow said the police department was small, which resulted in the need for officers to juggle “multiple hats.” Because of that, he was going to make a resolution to bring back the position of working detective at the same pay rate, with the add-on that they would still be working the road and doing detective work as needed.

Evans said she wanted officials to provide information to trustees ahead of time if they were going to have such discussions, with the job description, compensation and contract fleshed out.

Tedrow said he wasn’t expecting a resolution to be made at the meeting, and that he wanted to present it to the board so they had an idea of what the department was seeking.

“If we need to come back with something later, then we’re going to come back with something later,” Tedrow said.

Trustee Bill Colletta said he thought the sergeant’s position qualified Orr to be a detective.

Orr, who was present at the meeting, clarified that being a sergeant was an assignment, while the detective role was a position and was not affected by the police union’s contract.

Orr, an 18-year veteran, was reinstated in March 2024 following a lengthy legal battle, which came after being placed on administrative leave in October 2021 for an incident at the Flying J Travel Center off North Main Street at Interstate 80 that month.

He was promoted to sergeant months after his return.

Colletta, at an October 2024 meeting, praised Orr’s ability to handle investigations since returning to the department, noting that Orr had been working on past cases and was able to complete some of them, as well as new ones.

The department has been more actively covering cases, and while it isn’t a full-time job to complete investigations, it takes some time, and they can’t let them get backed up, Colletta said at the time.