City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening and welcome to tonight's Kabul City Council workshop on June 1st, 2026. It's just after 5 p.m. I just want to say we appreciate everyone being here tonight. We absolutely appreciate the support that's shown here for these officers that are going to be receiving promotions and some new hires that we have tonight. So with that, our officers do a great job serving our community and we're absolutely grateful for their dedicated service to the City of Caldwell each and every day, putting their lives on the line, everything they go through just to keep us safe day in, day out. With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Chief Ingram, and he'll kick things off. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council, and this is always the best part of my job is to come here and showcase the future of the organization, the future leadership teams of the organization, and just really highlight the great work that everyone's doing. but also to recognize the family that keeps our first responders whole and ready to serve our community each and every day. So without further ado, I'll go into the program. So first, my message is to the family. I'm Rex Singer. I'm the chief of police here, city of Caldwell. I've been doing this job since July 1st of 2022, and over the last four years, I've My first month that I started here, the two gentlemen back there towards the door, they were brand new. In fact, I think I saw them graduate I'm just very proud. But really, they can't do their job. These officers and these professional staff can't do their jobs without your support. And I've been doing this job about 20 years, sworn for 20 years. And there has never been a more important time to be in law enforcement in this country than right now. And there's never been a more challenging time to be in law enforcement than right now. As you guys know, public scrutiny is crazy right now with just across this country with everything happening. And so it's very imperative that we hire and we promote simply the very best. So our job is predicated upon public trust. And we can't do our job unless we have buy-in from the community as a whole that believes and make sure that they have all their constitutional rights in place. So we're just very proud to be here, very proud to promote these. these gentlemen and hire our two professional records staff who have to live vicariously through our police officers when they read their reports every day. And they have to smell the evidence and redact things from videos and truly carry that trauma home with them as well. So they have a tremendous job and we can't do our job as sworn staff without our professional staff. So I just want to personally recognize all the professional staff that are in here. Thank you Elisa and your team for being here. And without further ado, Our first promotee is Sergeant Chad Hessman. Come on up, Chad. Chad Hessman has about 18, 19, 18 years on the job. Thank you, Chad. Chad's been with Caldwell PD pretty much his whole career. Very proud of him. He spent a lot of time undercover. And he's got a wealth of knowledge. And if you guys don't know Chad, Chad will tell you how it is. And he doesn't care. He's unapologetic. And that's great. But sometimes it's not good. But I love Chad. And he does a great job. He's a great field leader and exactly what this organization needs to continue moving in the direction it's moving. So, Chad, congratulations.

At this time, I want you to introduce who you have in the audience and then who's going to be pinning you. So I have Shelly and my daughter, Kayden, and my dearest friends, Clark, Kavi, and Diane Stewart will be pinning me.

Very good. Thank you.

It's my chance to stab him in the heart.

There you go. Thank you. Next up, we have Mitch Markovits. I met Mitch about three years ago. He was a young jailer in the Ada County Sheriff's Office jail and is just a shining star in the organization and truly the future with these two gentlemen to the right of what this organization will look like. And just so proud of you, buddy. I feel like I see your parents more, though, when I see you out in the community. So very proud of you and just happy to see those corporal stripes. Thanks very much. So if you want to take the time and introduce who's here to support you and get you up here.

My wife, Avery. Nobody else.

Hi, Avery. Thanks, Mitch. Next up is Corporal Tim Fechter. Come on up, Tim. So like I said earlier, when I first met Tim, he was a young kid on probation, in training, doing a great job. And just so happy to see you with those stripes. And just really excited to see you take the next step and have more responsibility and continue all your passions about FTO stuff and training people in the future of this profession. So thank you very much. And I'll turn it over to you.

All right. And I'm here with my father-in-law and my mother.

One minute, buddy. We don't want to give a free show.

And our final promotee for today is Alex Gagan. Alex, come on up. Super proud of this guy. He has one of the biggest hearts you'll ever encounter in life. Smile is so infectious. And when you meet people like Alex, normally we meet cops, other cops, we're pretty stoic sometimes and jaded. And Alex just never gets jaded. He's always got a smile. And I see him more off duty probably than I've seen anyone else besides Mitch's parents. Whether it's In-N-Out Burger, GameStop, somewhere in the community, he's there, I'm there, and he's always exactly like that. But I'm just very proud of you, and the floor is yours, buddy. Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it. Yeah, my wife's going to be pinning me, Tara. I also have my four kids here, Kyler, Penny, Troy, and Aurora, as well as my mother-in-law, Cheryl, and my mom, Sherry.

I'm very, very, very proud of the future of this organization and who we're promoting, and just super excited to see them continue to promote and lead the organization. But it starts day one, and I can remember 20 years ago when I started the LAPD Academy, fresh, just green. And I like to think that I haven't changed much, but obviously the job changes people. And it's just really cool to see Two ladies here that are starting. One's kind of been in her career. Anita, come on up. We'll start with Anita. And Summer, our next employee who we just hired. Today's actually her first day starting her law enforcement career here. So Anita came by means of California. She was actually a dispatcher down in the- Evidence. I'm sorry, evidence. professional staff evidence in Northern California on the coast in Salinas, Watsonville area. And she then worked for the Meridian Police Department as a police officer and then decided to come to Caldwell and work in our records section. And she does a phenomenal job. And apparently she's a horse trainer too. So we'll put that to test too. But congratulations. Welcome to the team. I'm very, very, very proud of you. And just welcome aboard. Thank you.

Thank you.

Congrats. All right, Summer. Summer is actually a Caldwell native, born and raised here, and went to graduate at Valley View High School. This is her first time exploring in the law enforcement world, and I think she'll be pleasantly surprised that it's not like the Rookie and all these other shows that are out there. a little more solidified than that but we're we're very very blessed to have you here and proud to actually hire someone that's from caldwell and and understands the cultural issues here and and has seen the city grow over time so thank you very much very very honored to have you here thank you Anita, can you come back? Can you bring your family up so we can see who they are and recognize them? I'm sorry. Thank you. And if you want to introduce them, that'd be great. So who keeps you going?

My whole family keeps me going, but I have my sister, Audrey, here, and my boyfriend, Juan.

Very good. Let's give them a round of applause for keeping Anita going. Lastly, I just want to thank our professional standards bureau staff, Captain Tucker, Lieutenant Crystal Gambo, and all the other amazing unsung heroes like Larissa Esparza. that make this promotions and hiring and onboarding and all the things, all the glue that keep this place together behind the scenes. So we couldn't do our job again without our staff. And I just really want to say thank you for making another round of promotions. I know it's not easy. They run all the testing. They deal with all the people that are upset when they don't get promoted and you know, life goes on, but we're really, really excited to see the future of this organization and what the city has to offer. So congratulations. That concludes my remarks, and I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Mayor.

One more round of applause. Thank you, Chief. It's always a wonderful thing to see, like I said, our amazing officers, not only here each and every day or out in the streets, but to receive those promotions that they've worked hard for. So congratulations to all of you. Thank you for the family members that have shown up here tonight to support them. Of course, thank you, council. We appreciate everything you do in supporting the police department. So with that, this will conclude our special workshop tonight for police pending promotions and new hires. And you're welcome to stay until 6 p.m., but our city council meeting will be starting sharply at 6 o'clock. So with that, thank you. And we're adjourned for the time being.