I attended the first community meeting regarding the selection of the next San Jose Police Chief on Tuesday, Aug. 24 at the Roosevelt Community Center. Approximately 21 people attended. Attendees were divided into small groups to discuss five questions. I did not see any police officers however they may have been in attendance but remained anonymous.
Translation services were available in both Spanish and Vietnamese and printed material was provided in alternative languages as well. The cost for the recruiter is $26,000 to conduct the search including interviewing prospective candidates. San Jose is also paying up to $13,000 for travel expenses for all prospective candidate interviews since this is a national search. The goal is to pick a new Police Chief by the end of 2010.
In addition stakeholder outreach will be done with specific groups including La Raza, AACI (Asian Americans for Community Involvement) and PACT (People Acting in Community Together).
We have great internal candidates for Police Chief, like Captain Gary Kirby, Deputy Chief Diane Urban and Assistant Chief Chris Moore.
Here is some feedback given from all the tables that night:
What are the most important issues that you would like the new Police Chief to address?
Transparency; oversight; importance of the Independent Police Auditor; mental health issues; acknowledge good officers; more access to police records; police rotations should be longer to promote relationships between officers and residents; Gangs; racial profiling; police brutality; work with “immigrant” community.
What experience and track record should the new Police Chief have?
Experience managing a budget and under-budget; mediation skills; understands community view and police view; long history in one geography; trilingual or at least bilingual; history of promoting diverse officers; someone who changed perception of police from negative to positive; street-cop experience; manage complex organization; experience with a multi-cultural community; success in lowering crime however some thought statistics lie and this was unfair to use crime stats; track record of firing police.
Is there anything else you would like the City to consider when selecting the new Police Chief?
Should be pro-immigrant; skilled communicator; less on results more on initiatives; know the background/did their homework on issues facing San Jose; sustainable results over a period of time; at least five years of experience running large organization; speak in simple English not bureaucratic-speak; should recruit new police officers from the immigrant community; mail residents letters with the name of their local police officers and of course a sense of humor.
What are you willing to do or contribute to help the new Police Chief?
Attend more meetings; build bridges in the community; provide a report card on how new police chief is doing; pass out information; assist with outreach; be open minded.
The four groups provided feedback that essentially requires our next police chief to walk on water.
Does this feedback match your viewpoints?
There are three community meetings left:
Monday, Aug. 30, 7-9pm
San Jose City Hall Committee Rooms
Wednesday, Sept. 1, 6-8pm
West Valley Library
1243 San Tomas Aquino Rd
Thursday, Sept. 2, 6-8pm
Eastside Union High District Office
830 North Capitol Ave
You can give your feedback to these five questions via this email:info@tbcrecruiting.com
Or fill out an online Community-Police Chief survey by clicking this link.
Finally congratulations to the Mayor and RDA for locating another company in San Jose. Baxano, a medical device company, moved from Mountain View to San Jose. The CEO mentioned that one of the reasons for selecting San Jose was the proximity to our airport plus getting all of their permits in five days.