Police Chief Tim Kozal is going to use his background in public safety, the health care system and law enforcement to create a better Ontwa Township-Edwardsburg Police Department.

Kozal replaced retired chief Kenneth Wray Nov. 10.

“I believe we can make this one of the top departments in Cass County,” Kozal said. “In speaking with people in the community and the county, they believe this is ripe to be one of the leading departments in the county.

“We are right here on the border. We have a major artery coming through us coming from Chicago going north to the Kalamazoo area. I think we have a great opportunity. We just all need to buy into it.”

Kozal said that the members of his department have transitioned well to him being the new chief.

At the top of his priority list is making sure his department is getting what it needs.

“We need to take care of the family, our department, the family that we have here. Then we have to take care of our house, take care of our home, which we have been working really hard on together.

“Let’s start getting the community to buy in, which I have been working on since day one. It has been overwhelming. I have gotten a lot of great comments. We have had people stop  by and say how happy they are to see somebody out there in uniform taking the calls.”

Also high on his agenda is professionalism, which he hopes will lead to a tight-knit community that believes in its police department.

“I want them to trust us,” Kozal said. “I think we lost that trust with the police department, not only with the community, but within law enforcement as a whole in the entire county and you have to re-establish that.”

Things that Kozal would like to provide his officers in way of equipment is training so that they are prepared to face any situation they might encounter in the line of duty.

“I think our equipment right now is our people,” he said. “In meeting with our officers, I want to afford them the best training. I want them to be up-to-date and to go to as much training they can on a limited budget.”

Kozal said they have bought into that idea and that they want to work with him on that.

“Let’s get them up-to-date and make sure that I can afford them whatever I can,” he said.

If there was one thing that would top his wish list, Kozal said it would be to make his job obsolete.

“That has always been a goal whether it be when I was a manager, being a sergent when I was on the road, being a coach in high school, but also being the tip of the spear hear at Edwardsburg,” he said. “You really have to work hard to make your job obsolete.

“And what I mean by that is the officers should have all the tools, the education, the training to do their job. They should be able to do everything without having to reach out to me. They should be able to manage themselves. Then I can do more of what I need to do, which is the total administrative portion of it.”