LAFAYETTE, Ga. -- Some who applied for the LaFayette public safety director say the review panel didn’t follow its own directive. City officials disagree.

Robert “Skipper” Dunn served as assistant public safety director under the former chief Charles “Dino” Richardson before his boss died in August. He was managing most of the department before his death and has been acting director since August.

Dunn applied for the position and said a less-qualified candidate, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force agent Patrick Doyle, was chosen when the top three nominees were named on Monday.

Doyle has been in law enforcement since 1995. Dunn has more than twice the years of experience and all if it is with the LaFayette Police Department

“We have served this city for years, and evidently your loyalty to the city and your years of service don’t mean anything,” Dunn said.

Besides Doyle, the finalists include Tommy C. Freeman, a major in the Griffin Police Department, and Steve Anderson, a training coordinator at the South Georgia Police Academy in Tifton.

Several others in the LaFayette Police Department with 18 or more years of experience and training applied for the position. They agree the selection process, as defined by city officials, wasn’t followed.

“If we want to look at what the city manager said all along, that they were going to select the most qualified candidate, I don’t see how (Doyle’s) application made it into the top three,” detective Robbie Tate said. “There’s no way that he has the credentials that any of the other at least five candidates from here possess.”

Wesley Steele, a sergeant with the LaFayette Police Department, said he was also vexed by the panels decision.

One of the city’s paid firefighters, Roddy Dennison, asked why the job description focused on the police department. He didn’t apply for the position, but realizes the person who is hired must run both the police and fire departments.

“Why couldn’t they look for a fire chief that could get POST-certified?” he said. POST stands for Peace Officers Standards and Training.

The review committee is made up of LaFayette City Manager Johnnie Arnold, LaFayette Mayor Neal Florence, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson and Georgia State Patrol Post 41 Commander J.D. Stultz. No fire personnel are on the committee.

Florence said he knows people are upset, but that would be the case whatever the panel decides.

“It’s not their decision,” Florence said. “We followed the procedure that we set forth. We interviewed the candidates and the decision has not been made yet.”

Fellow panel member Wilson declined to comment on the process, saying it was a personnel matter for the city to handle.

“With it being a personnel matter I wouldn’t feel comfortable (talking about that),” Wilson said. “I’m not a city employee. I was just on the committee. I don’t think it would be proper for me to comment on anything to do with that type of matter.”

Florence sounded as if he could understand some of the frustration.

“There isn’t anybody that can replace Dino,” he said. “If we had picked someone else, it would have made somebody else mad. Every time you change department heads, you know you’re going to cause some controversy within the ranks.”

Arnold said Monday that the new director will likely be named at the March City Council meeting.