{"id":91156,"date":"2020-05-20T22:25:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T22:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-announces-new-police-chief-library-director\/"},"modified":"2020-05-20T22:25:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T22:25:38","slug":"cortez-announces-new-police-chief-library-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-announces-new-police-chief-library-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez announces new police chief, library director"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The city of Cortez has hired Vernon Knuckles as police chief, and Alicia Gomori-Lusker as the new library director.<\/span>Courtesy photos<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The city of Cortez has a new chief of police and a library director.<\/p>\n

After months of having both jobs posted, the city announced May 18 that Vernon Knuckles will be taking over as police chief and Alicia Gomori-Lusker will soon be the new director of the Cortez Public Library.<\/p>\n

Vernon Knuckles<\/div>\n

\"Knuckles\"
Knuckles<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Knuckles will fill the vacancy left by Roy Lane<\/a>, who served as the city\u2019s police chief for almost 40 years.<\/p>\n

He joins the city from the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cChief Lane and Sheriff (Steve) Nowlin had a really good working relationship,\u201d Knuckles told The Journal<\/em>. \u201cI see that relationship staying as strong as it ever was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knuckles grew up in Egnar, and after graduating high school, he moved to Cortez. He has served many years for local law enforcement agencies, including the Cortez Police Department and Dolores County Sheriff\u2019s Office, part of which was spent working for the 22nd Judicial District\u2019s drug task force.<\/p>\n

He holds a bachelor of arts degree in government from Grand Canyon University, served in the Utah National Guard for 35 years, and has earned a Bronze Star Medal, along with twice receiving the Army Achievement Medal.<\/p>\n

For the last nine years, he has worked for the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, serving as undersheriff since 2017.<\/p>\n

One of Knuckles\u2019 priorities is finding alternatives to traditional policing methods, especially since incarceration isn\u2019t always effective, he said. He would like to involve the community in addressing crime, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a policing problem, it\u2019s a community problem,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd because it\u2019s a community problem, I think the community needs to be involved in solutions. City Council, city manager, business owners. And try to foster those relationships with everybody in the community, and bring them on board to help come up with the solutions on how we address some of the problems that we face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law enforcement has looked somewhat different lately in the new COVID-19 landscape, but Knuckles said he\u2019s in favor of the processes currently in place limiting who can go in and out of the jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the priority is making sure that the inmates that are already there are as safe as possible,\u201d Knuckles said.<\/p>\n

His first day on the job is June 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to have someone with Vernon\u2019s leadership skill set and experience as a law enforcement officer in our community,\u201d City Manager John Dougherty said in a statement. \u201cI look forward to working with him on the challenges and opportunities ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alicia Gomori-Lusker<\/div>\n

\"Gomori-Lusker\"
Gomori-Lusker<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Gomori-Lusker will take over as director of the Cortez Public Library, filling the post left by Eric Ikenouye<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She joins Cortez from the Fountain Library, in the Pikes Peak Library District, where she served as library manager.<\/p>\n

Prior to serving as library manager, Gomori-Lusker served as the senior children\u2019s programming librarian in Fountain, which is southeast of Colorado Springs. She had been searching for a library director position, she said, and since her son is heading off to college in Pueblo, this seemed like a good time to make the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like a really great time to make some changes for myself and focus on some career goals,\u201d Gomori-Lusker said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s originally from Michigan, but has lived in Colorado since 2006. She holds a bachelor\u2019s of arts degree and a teaching certificate from Grand Valley State University and a master\u2019s degree in library and information science from San Jose State University.<\/p>\n

As library director, Gomori-Lusker will oversee all library operations and associated outreach programs. She said that initially she wants to get to know the community, and figure out what Cortez residents want from their library, as she has done in her current position.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work a lot with the city, a lot with community partners,\u201d she said. \u201cI think outreach is very important. I view a library as the center of a community, maybe the heartbeat of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both digital resources and books are incredibly important in a library, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think it\u2019s important to have an equal balance, so that folks have that choice,\u201d Gomori-Lusker said. \u201cIf they want digital resources, or to be able to come to the library for great programming, and just to talk to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her first day is June 29.<\/p>\n

\u201cI welcome Alicia to Cortez and am excited for the experience and skills she brings to our community,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cShe will be a great addition to our leadership team in helping our community moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

ealvero@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knuckles and Alicia Gomori-Lusker join city workforce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,318,28,638,29,51],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-municipal-government","tag-headlines","tag-library-and-museum","tag-newsletter","tag-police"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91156"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}