The Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge No. 69 elected Ken Kober as its new president this week.
Kober succeeds Dan Hils, who has served as president of the Cincinnati FOP since 2016.
In an interview with FOX19 NOW, Hils reflected on his time as president, saying that while he hasn’t been perfect, his top goal in the position was to make sure he was “fighting for his officers and making sure they know they have someone in their corner – no matter what.”
“You know, nobody will ever look at me and see perfection but if they can look at me and see sincerity, to me, that’s good enough,” Hils said.
Hils and Kober, who served as the Cincinnati FOP’s vice president up until now, have been working “very closely” together for the past two terms.
After being elected this week as the new president, Kober said his number one priority is staffing the Cincinnati Police Department.
“The biggest priority here now moving forward is that we have to help with recruitment. That’s something that is going to benefit everybody,” Kober said.
Kober said the department is understaffed by 157 officers.
Also, in an interview with Cincinnati CityBeat, Kober said he will fight for pay increases in the upcoming contract negotiations for officers.
“Working in a major city has its challenges with violence, with the volume of calls that are extremely difficult to deal with. It’s something that everybody that comes here welcomes with open arms, but they also deserve to be paid fairly for it,” Kober explained. “We have a contract that’s going to expire at the end of April… so, we’re immediately going to set a wage team or we’re going to start negotiating with the city. They know that there’s a problem. There’s a problem with getting people, there’s a problem with keeping people.”
Kober added that the next biggest thing officers want is an improved “work life balance.”
“The biggest thing that they want other than pay is to have that work life balance. Right now, we are subject to having our off days canceled at any given time…When I’m off, I want to be off. I’m fully committed to being here and protecting this city when I’m supposed to be here, but on my off days, I like to be able to relax, unwind. A lot of officers have families that are not from Cincinnati, they want to go see their families, but that gets interrupted when they have to go work a Bengals game on your off day,” Kober said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Cincinnati Police Department Officer” by Cincinnati Police Department.
