Three decades after serving as a reserve officer in Center Line, Paul Myszenski has returned to the city to oversee police and fire operations.
Myszenski, 51, is the new director of the Center Line Public Safety Department, filling a post that had been vacant for 12 months.
A Warren native who graduated from Tower High School in 1978, he retired in 2010 as a lieutenant in the Bloomfield Hills Public Safety Department after 27 1/2 years on the force.
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In his new role, he oversees 16 other certified and sworn officers and four dispatchers. The city recently hired another officer that will join the force soon. Three part-time dispatchers are expected to be hired later.
Center Line had been without a public safety director since John Riley left in February 2011 to become the police chief in Sault Ste. Marie. He had held the top police and fire job for 2 1/2 years.
Since Riley’s top administrator. Daily first-responder emergencies were overseen by Lt. Thomas Costello.
After voters last year overwhelmingly approved a 7.5-mill, 10-year millage increase last August, city officials sought applications for public safety director. Twenty people applied, and five were interviewed by City Council members. Myszenski was the unanimous choice.
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Myszenski will receive a salary of $60,703. He will not receive health insurance benefits from Center Line.
In the early 1980s, he worked as a reserve officer in the city for more than a year. Although Center Line measures only 1 1/2 square miles, Myszenski likens the town to larger cities that also have industrial firms, a mix of commercial businesses, an expressway, railroad, single-family residential, senior citizen housing and government subsidized homes.
Barely settled into his new office, Myszenski has begun studying the department’s $3.3 million budget and will soon crunch numbers for the next fiscal year. The council and the Center Line Public Safety Officers and Dispatchers union reached agreement on a new contract a few months ago. He said he has some changes in mind for the department, but declined to elaborate until city officials come closer to finalizing the next spending plan.
Plagued by plunging property values like in most area communities in recent years, Center Line’s police manpower dipped as most public safety officer vacancies went unfilled and officials implemented a hiring freeze. The future of the department appeared tenuous, and officials turned to residents for financial help by asking voters to approve the millage increase and realize they would still be paying less in taxes than before the recession.
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With a background in law enforcement and as the current top city administrator, Michrina believes the council made the right choice in selecting Myszenski.
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