New policeman follows in his father's footsteps

Cameron Cooksey will join the Fairfield Police Department May 24, but members of the city's Personnel Committee say he'll no longer be police Capt. Randy Cooksey's son when he puts on the blue uniform.

Personnel Committee members say they were aware Cameron Cooksey's appointment to the rookie officer position might raise some eyebrows, but that hiring him doesn't violate state law on nepotism.

The state law on nepotism, found in Chapter 71 of the Iowa Code, regulates the hiring of family members when their salaries are paid from public funds. The law states it is unlawful to pay from public funds "any person related by consanguinity or affinity, within the third degree, to the person elected, appointed, or making said appointment, unless such appointment shall first be approved by the officer, board, council or commission whose duty it is to approve the bond of the principal."

Personnel Committee member Ed Malloy said officials asked "hard questions about the chain of command" before acting on Police Chief Tom Baker's request that Cameron Cooksey be hired to fill the vacancy.

"They were fair questions to raise," Malloy added. "We were not ignorant of the fact there are issues here."

Cameron Cooksey, 26, joined the Fort Madison Police Department in January, but applied for the position because he wanted to return to his hometown and be near his two oldest children, said Randy Cooksey. He passed the Civil Service examination, the independent means of testing used by the city to determine the qualifications of candidates for certain jobs. The candidate also passed psychological and mental-ability tests.

(For the complete story, please refer to Page 1 of the May 13 issue of The Fairfield Ledger.)