The Hattiesburg City Council approved seven of Mayor Johnny DuPree’s 11 appointments presented at Tuesday night’s meeting, but declined to consider four others including the recommendation of former Vicksburg Police Chief Mitchell Dent.

All the approved positions were holdovers from the mayor’s previous term.

The four unapproved positions include a city judge pro-tem, chief of police, public defender and city attorney. Each individual in those positions, including Dent, was a new appointment.

Dupree said the current officeholders would continue to serve until he could find potential replacements.

The move by the council is the latest in a long string of political wrangling that has affected Dent’s law enforcement career.

Dent served as head of the VPD in 2000 and 2001 under mayor Robert Walker after having served as deputy chief for three years. He was replaced by Tommy Moffett when Laurence Leyens became mayor.

Dent left the VPD in 2002, according to the resume he submitted to Hattiesburg. Walter Armstrong replaced Moffett when Paul Winfield was elected mayor, and Dent rejoined the VPD in 2010 as a deputy chief. He was in that position until 2013.

Between stints at the VPD, Dent worked as a fraud investigator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Dent is also ordained as a minister and has been pastor of Mount Carmel Ministries in Vicksburg for the past 15 years.

DuPree is scheduled to be in court Monday for a hearing on how he is handling city appointments. Council members Carter Carroll and Kim Bradley filed a lawsuit in response to what they called the mayor’s failure to bring forward appointments in a timely manner.

Dent’s resume and cover letter are dated Dec. 29, a little more than a week before the council meeting.

Bradley said once the mayor had submitted new nominees for appointment, the current four no longer held those positions, and since the council declined to consider DuPree’s new nominees, that those positions now were open.

“The way that I understand it, and the lawyers that I have asked, the answer is no, those positions are now vacant,” he said. “It is my hope that he comes back and brings people who are truly qualified and will work for all of Hattiesburg and not just the chosen few that he’s trying to serve.”