St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson to retire, Assistant Chief Jeff Oxton will take his place

ST. CLOUD ― St. Cloud Police Chief William Blair Anderson announced his retirement Friday morning at St. Cloud City Hall after serving about a decade as chief.

Assistant Chief Jeff Oxton will take over as chief on Nov. 30. Oxton has been with the department for 27 years.

"I can tell you, I've had to make a lot of decisions in 17 years as mayor and one of the best decisions I ever made was to hire Chief Anderson. That was 10 years ago on Monday," said Mayor Dave Kleis. "It's an extremely, extremely demanding job and it requires just a remarkable individual to be around that long, but to lead a department the way Chief Anderson has. He is somebody who has connected and reformed … Chief Anderson has led, I believe, the best police department in the nation."

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Kleis said the past two years have "not been easy" for anyone who wears a police uniform and said Anderson has led the department through times of hardship and low morale.

"But I also believe the morale's never been higher with our department and that's also a testament to Chief Anderson, his ability to not only lead but to inspire and to demonstrate that respect and the respect of the community," Kleis said. "It's sad for me to know that Chief Anderson will no longer be at the helm … but his retirement is well deserved. He could have retired before and he could have went pretty much anywhere he wants to, I can tell you he has had offers, and that's what I respect even more, he stayed with the community."

'This city embraced me'

Anderson said he's not normally at a loss for words, but "on my way here though, for the first time in a long time, I got a little nervous."

He thanked colleagues and family for the support they have given him throughout his career, and said the city has always had his back, even through challenging times.

"You guys have given me the platform and the opportunity to try and pay back the tremendous debt that I owe for everybody who's ever invested in me. If you've ever heard that African proverb: 'It takes a village to raise a child.' I'm that kid," Anderson said. "I grew up in a very violent neighborhood in Detroit. And all I can remember from that is how much others invested in me so that I could reach my full potential. I could live my whole life and I will never be able to repay that debt. And so I tried to use this platform to pay back as much as I could, as often as I could. And I couldn't have come to a better place to carry out that vision and to try and reach those goals. This city embraced me. I was an outsider, and I can't think of a time when I was told 'no' by the mayor, by the city attorney, the city administrator and especially this community … every time we went and we reached out to this community with an idea to engage better, to more effectively and more efficiently serve them, they said 'yes.'"

Anderson said he would challenge other elected officials, particularly those in the state legislature, "to keep in mind the difficulty of the things we ask the men and women who serve as law enforcement professionals to do there," including personal sacrifices officers make to their families.

"It is a much different job than it was 20 years ago," he said. "Society has changed, the complexity of the things we ask these men and women to do, has changed greatly. And it is my sincere wish and hope that folks start to recognize the commitment and the sacrifices that the men and women, particularly in the St. Cloud Police Department, but law enforcement agencies everywhere, put forward every single day."

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'This is the place I want to serve'

Oxton said he remembers more than 20 years ago when he first walked into the law enforcement center in St. Cloud, freshly graduated from the University of North Dakota with his resume in hand, to introduce himself to then Police Chief Dennis O'Keefe.

"And about two months later, I got a call that I had a job as a part-time policing assistant. Which meant I was doing nighttime parking, I was working the front desk, I was working on bike patrol. That's how I started here. It didn't take me long," he said. "What I'll say is being from St. Cloud, I think sometimes when you're young, there's a thought that in order to be successful you need to go away from home to succeed. And some of that I was dealing with as well. It took me about two months working here, maybe even shorter than that, to see the people and the passion and the culture of this police department in the city. And it made me know right away. This is the place. This is the place I want to serve. This is the place I want to work."

Oxton said it was an honor and a privilege to continue to grow the department and make St. Cloud a place where people can feel safe. He said the department has had three chiefs in the past 35 years, "and it says something this day that we're moving to the point of going with an internal candidate."

"Chief Anderson has been a great asset to this police department, to this community, to the officers and all the people at this department. To me he's been a great mentor, a friend," he said. "I will forever be grateful for his service here and for what he has meant to me. I will say you will be missed … when you leave, but you will not be forgotten. Because you have created a legacy that will live here forever. I have no doubt of that."

Becca Most is a cities reporter with the St. Cloud Times. Reach her at 320-241-8213 or bmost@stcloudtimes.com. Follow her on Twitter at @becca_most. 

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