The Kent community is invited to attend the re-dedication of the Kent Police Department building in honor of former Kent Police Chief Robert E. Lee on Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 11:30 a.m. The ceremony will take place at the Kent Police Department at 220 Fourth Avenue South in downtown Kent.
Chief “Bob” Lee served the City of Kent from 1948 to June 1966 as its police chief, and from 1968 through 1972, as a Kent City Council member. In the 1980s, he worked as the membership salesperson for the Kent Chamber of Commerce where he met Mayor Suzette Cooke in 1981, when she was hired as the Chamber’s executive director.
“Chief Lee was a great ambassador for the Chamber of Commerce,” Mayor Cooke said. “The business people respected his knowledge and integrity. When combined with Bob’s people skills and soft sense of humor, he proved very successful in sales.”
Lee also served as a hearing officer for the Kent School District, and he founded the Kent Juvenile Court Committee. He had great empathy for kids and wanted to see them grow up and stay on the right path. His community service garnered him an award from the Kent Rotary Club.
In the early 1990s, Kent City Hall expanded to the south, into what was then the King County Library. The old library was remodeled to accommodate our police department, and the police headquarters were dedicated in memory of former Chief Robert E. Lee on September 18, 1992.
Chief Lee was highly regarded in this community for both civic and law enforcement leadership roles. It is an honor that the Kent police headquarters are named, and now re-dedicated, in Chief Robert E. Lee’s memory.
[Source: Dana Neuts, City of Kent, Communications Consultant]
