It is up in the air whether the new city council will fulfill a
controversial 4-3 closed session vote taken last summer that
directed lame-duck City Administrator Jay Baksa to hire the city’s
next police chief.
It is up in the air whether the new city council will fulfill a controversial 4-3 closed session vote taken last summer that directed lame-duck City Administrator Jay Baksa to hire the city’s next police chief.
Three newly elected members will be seated Monday night, and the looming decision before them means the first session could be anything but a warm-up lap.
Two incoming council members said elected officials should have been more involved in the six-month selection process. Councilwoman-elect Cat Tucker said she would likely ask for more time to decide since Baksa’s past picks for chief have incurred criticism. Plus, she said, she is not yet privy to the ins and outs of City Hall.
“Being that it’s the police chief, who affects the majority of citizens, I think that for this particular decision, the council should have been more involved,” Tucker said. “I don’t have confidence (in Baksa’ pick). I want to dig into the stats and information on his past picks. How did they come to these conclusions? How did they filter out candidates? I haven’t been told any of that, so just to say trust me, please, I think this guy’s a good guy – that is not enough for me.”
Mayor Al Pinheiro disagreed, saying the six-month search process may have excluded councilmen, but the city charter calls for a hired consultant to cull applicants along with Baksa, Assistant City Administrator Anna Jatczak and a team of residents, police personnel and department heads.
The administrative pair has picked four finalists and will present the top two choices, out of an original pool of 51 applicants, to council during a closed session Monday, Baksa said. Councilman-elect Perry Woodward said none of the four finalists are from the Gilroy Police Department. Councilman-elect Bob Dillon could not be reached for comment.
It is going to be tough to satisfy everyone with a single chief, Councilman Dion Bracco said, adding that he does not know any more than Tucker. Bracco said he looked forward to vetting the merits and background of whomever Baksa recommends as part of his council duty.
“It’s the way the council approved it to be done,” Bracco said. “I don’t think you can put off an important decision like hiring a chief until (the new council members) learn the ropes.”
But the mayor was slightly more sympathetic to the idea of postponement.
“There’s nothing that says we have to make a decision that evening,” said Pinheiro, adding that the outgoing council timed the appointment to coincide with the new council for a reason: It should pick the chief it will deal with throughout the next few years.
Letting the next city administrator pick the new chief was also a thought, but the closed session vote has allowed Baksa to choose a preferred candidate before he retires at the end of December. The subsequent, multi-faceted interview process that has taken place means Baksa cannot be judged by the performance of past chiefs since he was not the sole decider along the way, according to Pinheiro and City Councilman Peter Arellano.
“We want to keep politics out of city employees,” Arellano said of the council’s lack of involvement until the very end of the hiring process. “We have an HR department – people who are trained in the screening process. I trust them enough to bring forward an applicant … Jay doesn’t do it all by himself.”
Pinheiro agreed.
“To try and say that Jay’s picks were bad in the past, that’s your opinion. There are different opinions throughout the community, so don’t even go there,” Pinheiro said.
Controversy emerged last February when outgoing Police Chief Gregg 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 their state pensions in addition to city pay.
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.
Despite this, Tucker said she has heard sitting councilmen express confidence in Baksa and the entire interview process. But the track record speaks for itself, she said, as does her own experience. Tucker said a Gilroy police officer pulled her son over unnecessarily, so she encouraged him to fight it in court, which he did so successfully.
“That’s an example of some of things I want to know. How many of the candidates have had their tickets thrown out of court? What are his (or her) feelings about profiling? Not only race, but age.”
Woodward said he is more concerned with logistics.
“If you put a police chief in and then put in a new council and administrator, there could be a disconnect,” he said. “If it were me, you would start with the top down. It seems to me that we’re going out of step.”
Baksa said he was originally undecided about whether he or the next city administrator should choose the police chief. The high-quality candidates he interviewed changed his mind, though, he said.
“I could have gone either way,” Baksa said. “Now, having gone through this process, I’m glad we did.”
