Center Line

Center Line welcomes new public safety director

By Brian Louwers
C & G Staff Writer

» Click on image to view full size « Photo by Brian C. Louwers Paul Myszenski started work as Center Line’s new public safety director Feb. 13. Photo by Brian C. Louwers Paul Myszenski started work as Center Line’s new public safety director Feb. 13.

CENTER LINE — Center Line leaders said they’ve found the man they were looking for in a new public safety director.

After beginning his career with a stint as a reserve officer in Center Line in 1982, followed by more than 27 years with the Bloomfield Hills Public Safety Department, Paul Myszenski started work as Center Line’s new public safety director Feb. 13.

“I think council made an excellent choice in selecting Paul as the director,” Center Line City Manager John Michrina said. “I like that he has the perfect experience. He’s from a similar sized, fully integrated public safety department (in Bloomfield Hills). He is jumping in with both feet and absolutely intends to remake the department.”

Myszenski’s hiring came a year after former Public Safety Director John Riley again left the city — he had previously retired from the department in 2006 — to become chief of police in Sault Ste. Marie.

Michrina, a former police chief in Monroe, and Center Line Department of Public Safety Lt. Thomas Costello shared the respective administrative and operational duties in the interim, and the shuffle saved the city about $65,000 last year.

Officials had said they intended to seek a new full-time administrator and bolster the department by hiring public safety officers and dispatchers. The efforts were supported by a 7.5-mill public safety proposal overwhelmingly approved by Center Line voters last summer.

Michrina said the city received 20 applications for the director position and conducted five interviews. Myszenski was identified as a “good fit.”

“When you look for someone in a key position like this, there are two issues: You make sure they’re qualified and competent, and that they’re a good fit,” Michrina said. “I really think he’s a good fit.”

Myszenski, 51, retired as a lieutenant from the Bloomfield Hills Public Safety Department in May 2010; he had served as the department’s interim director for a short period.

“I spent my whole career as a public safety officer,” said Myszenski, adding he intends to build on the “excellent programs” already offered through the Center Line Department of Public Safety.

“I’ve only been here two days. I’ll be honest with you, it’s a wonderful place,” Myszenski said. “There are a lot of things this department does, a lot of things they have, that are really beneficial to the officers. I’m looking to enhance what they have.”

Given the financial challenges of operating city departments these days, Myszenski said he intends to maximize the department’s efforts to leverage grant funding when possible and to take advantage of in-house training opportunities.

The latter effort would continue to prepare Center Line’s new and existing public safety officers for what Myszenski described as a full array of potential situations in a city that’s “only small if you talk about it geographically.”

“If you talk about what they have in town, we have everything that a big city would have, just not as much of it,” Myszenski said. “I don’t recall ever being so excited to come to work as I am to come to work every day here. I’m really enjoying myself.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Brian Louwers at brianlouwers@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1089.