Holladay city leaders appoint Chris Bertram as Deputy Chief

In 2008, Holladay welcomed its newest chief of police services, Chris Bertram. With recent changes directed by the Unified Police Department, Bertram was appointed the Deputy Chief by the Holladay City Council at the Jan. 5 council meeting.

“Although I will be doing the same thing that I did the day before, the position really solidifies the fact that these precincts have local control,” Bertram said. “It is important that the cities can choose who will be leading their police services.”

Bertram, a 21-year veteran of the Sheriff’s department, is a fourth generation police officer. Bertram’s educational background includes a degree in psychology and two master degrees (a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Arts from the Naval Postgraduate School).

In 1997, Bertram was named the State of Utah’s Deputy Sheriff of the Year by the Utah Sheriffs’ Association. He also completed three months of study to graduate from the FBI National Academy, which focuses on the administration of justice in local police departments. Bertram was recently published in Sheriff Magazine with an article he wrote about emergency preparedness, and how it relates to law enforcement and their families.

In the past 3-1/2 years, Bertram has witnessed community policing at its best. Officers working leads and gathering intelligence has led to many arrests to make the city safer.

“The best thing I can tell people living in Holladay is that we want to watch out for each other,” Bertram said. “In the past year, we have implemented the repeat offender program. Anyone that has a warrant out for their arrest, we are tracking them down, arresting them and bringing them in front of a judge.”

The trend Bertram has noticed during the past year is that larcenies (thefts and burglaries) have dropped.

“We believe it has to with our officers being active in our community gathering intelligence, taking care of our repeat offenders and as a result we have witnessed our property crimes decrease,” Bertram said.

A prime example of this policing in action was about a month ago. Local police officers had a picture of a person committing a property offense.

“We put that picture out to our informants and law enforcement connections, and before we could even get it to the local news that night, we got a name, were able to make contact and the person was put into custody,” Bertram said. “It speaks well of the detectives that I have up here and their connections.”

Bertram also said through effective traffic enforcement major accidents in the city have been noticeably down.

“I work closely with the city engineer, and anywhere we can engineer traffic safety, we do it.” Bertram said. “People enjoy a good quality of life when they feel safe.”

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