Mokena Aims to Have New Top Cop on by Jan. 2014

Mokena is looking to have a new full-time police chief by the beginning of next year, according to a village official.

The village has taken on Deerfield-based Voorhees Associates, an executive recruitment firm, to assist with the search for a new chief. Voorhees was officially taken on after the Sept. 23 meeting, and their process takes about 90 days to complete, according to village meeting minutes.

Voorhees incorporates interviews with village and police officials to help determine criteria for a matching candidate.

“The reason we decided to go with it is when we did an internal assessment, we felt there were no candidates qualified enough to serve as chief from internal rankings,” said Mokena Village Administrator John Downs. “Once we made that decision we had no other choice but to look outside. This helps get the word out wider and then narrow the field down to numbers we could use.”

Mokena Police Chief Randy Rajewski will retire at the end of the year after serving for about 10 years as police chief, and first served with Mokena Police as a patrolman in 1985.

“He’ll be difficult to replace because he did such a fantastic job and is a great leader,” Downs said about Chief Rajewski. “Now we’ll look for someone to take the reigns and maybe brings in some new perspective to our operations as well.”

The cost for taking on Voorhees is $15,400, and $15,000 was originally budgeted for the current fiscal year to cover search expenses.  

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