Dec 22, 2025 By Garrett Neese 4 min read

Uniontown City Council members said goodbye to their departing police chief and elaborated on the process of picking a successor at their most recent meeting.

Council approved the resignation of Chief Delbert DeWitt, who is leaving the police department to head the public safety department at Robert Morris University, a private college in Pittsburgh.

DeWitt had been with the department since 2011, serving for the past four years as chief.

He thanked council and residents for their support.

“It’s a bittersweet day for me, but ultimately you have to make the best decisions for your family, and God put this on my path, and this is where I’m going to be at this point,” he said at the Thursday meeting.

Mayor Bill Gerke said selecting DeWitt as chief was one of his proudest accomplishments.

“I chose him,” he said. “I’m very proud of that. The last four years that DJ served here, he’s done a fantastic job … I don’t want to get choked up about it, but Chief, thank you so much.”

A new chief will be appointed at the council’s Jan. 2 meeting, Gerke said.

Under Pennsylvania’s third-class city code, cities can only look outside the department for hires if it determines there are no qualified internal candidates, said Solicitor Tim Witt. So far, three members of the department have applied.

Gerke also addressed the drop in staffing at the police department in response to a resident asking if any funds would be reallocated.

State police will continue to cover the night shift from 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. for the time being. Of the department’s three daily shifts, the midnight shift has the fewest 911 calls, Gerke said.

“That’s a very short-term handling of those hours until we get restaffed, and we’ll move forward from there,” he said.

Councilman Jared Billy said the funds would stay within the police department budget. He anticipated whatever money the city would save from temporarily being understaffed would quickly be offset when the new contract is in place.

“Once the contract is settled and then they do some advertisement (for new positions), I believe that it’s not going to be very long,” he said.

Members of the council, residents and officials also praised DeWitt’s job as chief.

District Attorney Mike Aubele said DeWitt had been the first person to reach out to him before he took office to talk about how the department and the district attorney’s office could support each other.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that over the last few years, since Chief DeWitt has been the chief, that the city has become safer, that we haven’t had a homicide in this city in over a year when we’ve had so many issues in the past … I can’t say enough for what he’s meant to this city, for my office and for my community as a whole,” he said.

The council also voted to approve a payment of $64,967.05 to DeWitt to compensate him for accrued vacation time he hadn’t used.

Councilman Jared Billy said the payout was the largest in his eight years on the council, and possibly in the city’s history.

“That is the dedication that we have with you,” he said. “The patrolmen and the brass underneath of you have that same drive, and I’m very confident in our next replacement.”

At Thursday’s meeting, council also approved a $5,326,057.39 budget for 2026, which Billy called “extremely thin.”

“Everybody is going to have to do their part this year,” Billy said. “The three contracts that are being negotiated, that all has heavy, heavy implications on that bottom line.”

Tax rates for the city were unchanged from 2025: 11.9288 mills for general purposes, 0.3055 mills for recreation and 0.7657 mills for the library.