The City of Soldotna held a swearing in ceremony Wednesday evening for the new Chief of Police for the Soldotna Police Department. Chief Dale ‘Gene’ Meek formally took his oath of office and was sworn in at 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday. This comes after former Chief Peter Mlynarik in late 2021 announced his last day was in January of this year.
Chief Meek tells KSRM:
“I was chief of Center, Colorado and my wife had always wanted to come to Alaska and I had an uncle who had been in the Army. He was a Master Sergeant up in Fairbanks. I’ve got a really close of mine that lives down in Juneau. Several people that I have been lifelong friends with whether it’s from Kentucky or Florida have come up here, went on hunting adventures, so when my wife said she wanted to come up here, it actually coincided with Soldotna posting for Chief of Police. I put in my application, I made the first cut, they brought me up here for an interview and next thing you know, here I am getting sworn in.”
Chief Meek lays out what he’s hoping to accomplish as Chief of Police:
“Going by the officers and going by a lot of individuals I’ve talked to so far, whether I bump into them at the coffee shop or just me being me, there is a very positive outlook on the police department, which is good, but I personally am about community engagements. Here in the near future, we’ll start up Coffee with the Chief. I’ll rotate that around to different areas because, huge coffee drinker, but I’ll bring people in just to sit down and interact with them and get their concerns about the community. I’ve already talked with several officers that have had some great ideas on community engagements. We might bring back an old school fishing tournament, just with the kids…just to get the kids involved in some of the activities that we’re doing. Just getting out into the community and learning people, learning places and finding out what the concerns are.”
Chief Meek brings over 27 years of demonstrated law enforcement experience to the Soldotna Police Department. He arrived in Soldotna on July 13 and reported for duty on July 18.