These 11 people will advise and review Bluffton’s police department. See who they are
A committee that Bluffton’s Town Council chartered in January to give community feedback and review “critical incidents” of its police department is set with 11 members.
The citizens advisory committee, whose initial members were appointed Aug. 11, makes up a “cross-section of the Bluffton community,” according to the committee’s charter.
The panel’s objectives include flagging community needs regarding public safety and reviewing incidents and police policy.
Marc Orlando, Bluffton town manager, said the committee has “a very significant and important role” in communicating between the public, the town council and the police department.
It doesn’t, however, have any powers beyond that.
“(It’s) advisory in the sense as they do not have any formal powers for any personnel policy protocols,” said Orlando. “It’s simply an advisory committee.”
The formation of the committee comes at a time a national conversation is under way about police brutality, the use of force and citizen oversight of police, and some of the advisory committee’s members have taken stances on those issues on their public Facebook accounts.
Here is who they are:
Lawrence Ruocco
Ruocco is a former administrator and former police officer for the Township of Waterford, N.J., according to Kim Chapman, Bluffton town clerk. He retired in 2014 and began working as a security officer in Sun City in 2015 where he still works, according to his Linkedin profile.
On his public Facebook account on Aug. 18, he criticized the “rioting animals” protesting police brutality in Portland.
In the post, Ruocco also says he “will not go into the night without a few of you.”
In a July 18 post, Ruocco said he has “zero care or support for these rioters,” sharing an article on a protest of police in New York.
Jennifer Morrow
Morrow is a Bluffton native who has lived in Beaufort County for 35 years. She is running for school board to represent District 9. She previously worked with the Department of Defense in Marine Corps Service, serving as a coordinator helping to set up accommodations for children of families deployed overseas.
Some of Morrow’s posts on her public Facebook account call for law enforcement reform and justice for Black Americans killed at the hands of police.
Sharing a post regarding Elijah McClain — a Black man killed when Aurora, Colorado, police restrained him in a chokehold last summer — Morrow wrote on June 24: “Existing and walking while Black a few feet from your own home, is something no White person in America will ever have to be concerned with...This is my/our reality.”
Tabor Vaux
Roberts “Tabor” Vaux Jr., a former county council member, is one of two Bluffton business owners appointed to the committee. The Beaufort-born, Bluffton-raised attorney helps run the Vaux Marscher Berglind law firm.
He represents victims in injury cases, such as the family of a 22-year-old Hilton Head man killed in a crash on U.S. 278 this year.
He also previously represented a Bluffton police officer accused of assaulting other off-duty officers in 2019 while intoxicated. The charges were thrown out.
Harry Lutz
Harry Lutz, also a Bluffton businessman, is a former town council member.
Lutz, who moved to Bluffton in 2010 and was elected in 2015, lost his reelection bid in November 2019, placing third behind Council Member Dan Wood and Council Member Bridgette Frazier in a race for two open seats.
As a council member, he made growth management a priority.
He is an agent at Harbor Light Insurance in Bluffton.
William ‘Bill’ O’Toole
Bill O’Toole, a former acting chief of police in Maryland, has the most law enforcement credentials on the citizens advisory committee. O’Toole was an officer in the police department in Montgomery County, Maryland, for 25 years, according to his Linkedin profile.
He served during a tumultuous time for that county, when 10 people were gunned down from the 2002 D.C. sniper killings.
O’Toole then moved to training other law enforcement officers at the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy. He retired in 2016 from the job based in Ashburn, Virginia, and moved to Bluffton.
Mayra Rivera Vazquez
Rivera Vazquez was elected chairwoman of the Beaufort County Democratic Party in 2018, the first of Latin American descent.
Rivera Vazquez was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Bluffton in 2013. She works as a legal assistant at Deverall Immigration Law. She is also on the board of directors of the Hilton Head Regional Habitat for Humanity.
She represented the county at the Democratic National Convention virtually this month.
George Bailey
Bailey worked for General Motors for 40 years before retiring as a metropolitan area manager. He settled in Bluffton in 2008.
In 2018, Bailey was on the citizens panel to help choose Bluffton’s police chief, a position which went to Chris Chapmond.
Bailey is a current board member and former treasurer of Heroes of the Lowcountry, a nonprofit group that provides college tuition assistance to high school graduates in Beaufort and Jasper counties.
Ron Davies
Davies is treasurer of the Kiwanis Club of Bluffton, part of the larger national service organization, according to his website bio.
Davies has been in the insurance claims industry for nearly 40 years, according to his biography. He is a native of New England and moved to Bluffton’s Lawton Station development in January 2015 with his wife, his bio says. He joined Kiwanis in Bluffton in 2016.
Rosette El Sahlani
Sahlani works as a Wells Fargo bank teller at the Okatie branch.
She moved to Bluffton from Cleveland, Ohio, in 2017 and is from Lebanon. She lived in California before moving to Ohio.
Sahlani said she has never been involved in any political committees before, but has been involved in her church.
“I was born in Lebanon. I think a person with a different background can give a different view of things,” she said, regarding her appointment to the citizens advisory committee.
“I’m a very fair person,” said Sahlani. “We’re going to be helping (Bluffton) police with their issues.”
Reginald Howard
Howard is a retired Army officer, a mental health expert, and has a social services background, said Chapman, Bluffton’s clerk.
He is a registered social worker with the state of South Carolina, according to the S.C. Board of Social Work Examiners.
Several attempts to reach Howard were unsuccessful.
Howard moved to Bluffton in 2016, according to Chapman.
His public Facebook page shows he worked as an instructor at the U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence.
Michael Frazier
Frazier is general manager of R.S. Andrews, an air conditioning/HVAC company that serves Bluffton, Hilton Head and Savannah.
He first moved to Bluffton in 2001 and got his start as a golf professional at Berkeley Hall. Frazier is from The Plains in Virginia, a town smaller than 300 people.
Frazier said he was motivated to join the citizens advisory committee after getting to know former Chief Chris Chapmond.
“I’m a big supporter of law enforcement. All of it. Everyone who serves this country per se,” said Frazier.
Asked about the quasi-regulatory role of the citizens advisory committee, Frazier said he wants to use the committee to help make the department better.
“I’ve seen the challenges,” he said. “I feel if we all work together, we can make this community better for our officers.”
Next steps
Chapman said the town received a total of 33 applications for the committee. Four were ineligible because the applicants didn’t live within the specified town limits.
The committee has not elected its leaders, but it’s first meeting takes place on September 10 at 6 p.m.
The meeting can be watched live on the Town of Bluffton Government’s Facebook page.
