Council names interim police chief after Chief Kelso resigns

After spending most of two hours behind closed doors during their regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Monday, members of the Shiner City Council emerged a bit after 8 p.m. to announce that former Lavaca County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Wayne Denson would soon serve as the council’s official pick for interim chief of police in Shiner.
The announcement came after Shiner’s current police Chief Kevin Kelso formally tendered a letter of resignation to members of the city council last week.
Chief Kelso was hired by members of the Shiner City Council nearly two years ago to the date: They offered him the position on Oct. 4, 2021, with his official start date set Oct. 12, 2021. This week, they officially named his replacement on Oct. 2, and his last day occurs on Wednesday, Oct. 11.
Kelso, a Gonzales native and veteran lawman, joined the Shiner Police Department with more than 30 years of law enforcement experience. He came to Shiner from Beeville where was serving as interim police chief at the Beeville Police Department.
Prior to the Beeville post, he spent a full decade as the police chief of the Seguin Police Department, where he led a staff of more than 80 employees, including some 60 licensed police officers and several civilian staff.
He spent 22 years before that with the Victoria Police Department, where he rose to the rank of Captain of Operations before he left for Seguin, to assume his first chief’s job with that department.
“It was just time, you know,” Kelso said of his reasons for leaving when he did.
Besides, with that sort of experience behind him, he’s likely retiring to some sandy beach someplace, right? Not quite yet, Kelso told us in a phone interview that evening.
Rather, Kelso said he’s been offered a position as an investigator working with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE), the very same agency that licenses peace officers here in the Lone Star State. But retirement certainly isn’t far off for him at this stage in his career, he added.
Denson, named interim police chief that same night, actually comes out of retirement to accept the post with the city.
He served multiple terms as Shiner’s Justice of the Peace before opting to step down, the same year that Mark Yackel, another Gonzales native like Kelso, was elected to that office.  
Meanwhile, city officials will begin searching for a new department chief once more. Kelso replaced Zachary Kramer, who after resigning his post abruptly after allegations of mismanagement, creating uncomfortable work environments, and playing favorites were levied against him by a few of his subordinate officers, prompting a temporary suspension.
Before his suspension was scheduled for release, Kramer tendered a resignation letter to the city.
Mayor Fred Hilscher later stated, not long after Kelso was hired, that none of the accusations against him were ever verified by the city’s investigation in the matter.
The mayor went on to thank Kramer for his service to Shiner, both as police chief for the previous year here in Shiner and as one of its ranking officers before that, serving under longtime Chief Ronnie Leck, who retired in 2020 after some five decades of publics service as police chief in Yoakum and Shiner (twice), as Lavaca County Judge, and as a U.S. Marine.
Leck recommended Kramer to the chief’s job, upon his retirement, a recommendation that the council immediately endorsed.
Following what he considered a wrongful suspension and later, termination with the city, Kramer filed civil action against the city for wrongful discharge with federal courts in Victoria. To our best knowledge that case remains open and active today still.