Council postpones potential selection of the city’s first black
or female police chief
GILROY
Residents will have to wait until next year to see who the next police chief will be.
The city council is expected to vote on the matter Jan. 22 after a closed session Monday night did not yield a decision. City Administrator Jay Baksa declined to comment on what was discussed behind closed doors, but he said Tuesday that what has traditionally happened is that the city administrator presents the council with his or her top pick after months of interviews with the applicants and then the council votes on that single pick in an open session, most likely Jan. 22 this time around.
The Dispatch learned earlier this month that two of the three finalists competing to replace outgoing Gilroy Police Department Chief Gregg Giusiana are a woman and a black man. If the city council selects either of them, it would a first for the department’s highest seat.
Morgan Hill Police Commander Joe Sampson could become Gilroy’s first black police chief, and Chief Denise Turner of the King County Sheriff’s Department in Seattle, Wash., could be the department’s first woman chief. The third applicant is San Jose Police Department Deputy Chief Donald Anders.
Baksa and Assistant City Administrator Anna Jatczak recently went to San Jose and Washington, respectively, and they recommended their top pick to councilmembers Monday night, but a final decision will have to wait until the new year, according to several councilmembers who did not elaborate because of legal constraints.
If the council selects Turner, that would also mean Gilroy Fire Department Chief Dale Foster and City Administrator Jay Baksa would be the only male department heads left in the city. And if Jatczak replaces Baksa he retires next month, then Foster would remain as the sole male department head: The city has five departments, and Wendie Rooney heads the Community Development Department and Susan Andrade-Wax the Community Services Department.
Turner declined to comment, and Sampson and Anders did not return messages. Gilroy administrative and elected officials have been equally tight-lipped because the hiring process is still ongoing, and personnel matters are routinely handled behind closed doors.
After six months of interviews and research, Baksa and Jatczak have led a team of residents, police personnel and department heads who culled the three finalists from a pool of 51 applicants, according to Baksa.
Controversy emerged last February when Giusiana and Assistant Chief Lanny Brown brokered secret retirement deals with Baksa. City council members, police officers and the community were left in the dark about the deals, which allowed the top two law enforcement officers to “double dip” by collecting state retirement pay in addition to a city salary.
Before Giusiana, former chief Roy Sumisaki left under a cloud, and Baksa’s experimental effort to bridge the police and fire commands with Fire Chief Art Gillespie, who became the public safety director, was abandoned.
