Three hours and twenty minutes after the Caseyville Village Board meeting began Wednesday night, about 100 residents filed back into the Village Hall Meeting Chambers to learn the fate of their police chief.

Caseyville Police Chief Jose Alvarez addresses the Village Board on March 19, 2014 / Photo by Roger Starkey

The crowd of about two hundred that attended the meeting had thinned after a two-hour closed session during which the six Village Board members gave Police Chief Jose Alvarez an opportunity to answer the various allegations made by Mayor Len Black when he attempted to fire Alvarez twice and by Village Attorney John Gilbert in a confidential letter leaked to the entire town.

The Board decided to retain the chief Black hired six months ago, Black announced.

“The Board has decided to give the police chief another chance,” Black read when the meeting resumed. “No action will be taken at this time.”

Following a sustained round of applause from the residents, there was some confusion about why no public vote was taken. The reason, as explained by  Gilbert, was that Alvarez was not fired on Feb. 28, as most people had believed, nor was he suspended, as many also believed.  Because Alvarez was neither fired nor suspended, the decision reached in closed session was, essentially, to do nothing.

Black told The Metro Independent on March 1 that Gilbert had fired Alvarez by phone at 4:15 p.m. on Feb. 28 for insubordination. Alvarez recently said he was not fired by Gilbert during the phone call, but was told he “may be fired for insubordination” if he did not attend a meeting with Black that began at 4 p.m. Gilbert confirmed that version of events Wednesday.

The mayor sent police officers to Alvarez’s home the next two days in an attempt to serve him with termination papers. The officers sent to deliver the message were never able to locate Alvarez, who received a temporary injunction on March 4 to return to work. Another injunction, combined with a Village Board vote on March 5, prohibited Black from firing Alvarez until the Village Board meeting Wednesday.

Regardless of his employment status prior to Wednesday, Alvarez, after the meeting, was ready to move forward, and confident that he would be able to do so.

“I want to provide the service to the people of Caseyville that they deserve,” Alvarez said. “I want to continue to move forward with the department.”

Black was happy that everyone was able to express their opinion during the closed session, even though the result was to retain the police chief he had twice attempted to fire, he said.

“We were able to work together and come together,” Black said. “I liked that.”

Alvarez was not the only Caseyville employee to return to work from a state of occupational purgatory. The Board voted unanimously to hire Connie Frederick as the police evidence clerk on Jan. 15. No questions were raised by Board members or the mayor during the process.

At some point after one of the attempts by Black to fire Alvarez, Black removed Frederick from her position, but never fired her. Trustee Brenda Williams said Black removed Frederick because he had heard that she had threatened to quit and Frederick had not shown up to work for a week when she was not scheduled to work.

Frederick worked with Alvarez for five years at the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s office before he requested she be hired as the Caseyville evidence clerk.

When Williams made a motion Wednesday to return Frederick to her position, Black said, “it’s kind of interesting how we find the money for these things,” and then read from a prepared statement that indicated Caseyville could not afford to hire a part-time clerk.

Only two months after Frederick was hired without question, Black then wondered why it was not possible to bring in a Caseyville resident to do the job. “We have plenty of citizens in town, daughters and kids,” Black said.

During the subsequent discussion about qualifications and lack of a previous evidence clerk, each time Black suggested someone from town be hired for the position, he received a large round of applause from the gathered crowd. Williams ended the discussion by reminding the board that they had hired Frederick and she had never been fired.

“We are not rehiring her, we are putting her back to work,” Williams said.

Rick Casey Jr. was the only board member to vote against putting Frederick back to work.