Police chief Gregg Giusiana and assistant chief Lanny Brown’s
retirements will leave leadership positions open
Gilroy – Top spots at the police department could be vacant within a year, but who will fill them is anyone’s guess.
Police chief Gregg Giusiana and assistant chief Lanny Brown are the highest-ranking employees to announce their departures, and the latest in a five-year retirement wave. Since 2002, the department has replaced more than a dozen officers, ranging from patrol officers to higher-ups such as Capt. Jack Robinson, who stepped down in December.
“We’ve had a major retirement boom the last five years,” remarked Sgt. John Sheedy, scanning a department roster. Twenty-two years after he joined the department, only “five people working here were here when I started.”
Among them are Giusiana, likely to depart next year, and Brown, who plans to leave in July. The two chiefs quietly retired in December and January, but were re-hired and remained at work, through a legal deal with City Administrator Jay Baksa.
Rank-and-file officers were surprised to learn last week that the chiefs were already retired, though both were expected to retire soon. As Gilroy officers near their 50th birthdays, their retirement benefits can rival their pay, thanks to the “3 at 50” pension plan, which pays 3 percent of an officer’s salary for each year worked. With pensions like that, most officers opt out in their 50s.
“We knew the retirements were coming, because of the age makeup of the department,” explained Capt. Kurt Svardal. In annual succession plans, police have mapped out who intends to leave when, plotting up to 10 years in advance. This year, said Svardal, “we’re nearing the end of the [retirement] wave.”
As the highest-ranking officers, Giusiana and Brown’s planned retirements have attracted more attention than turnover among the rank-and-file, where two spots are up for grabs. In December, Brown’s announcement that he would leave the job this July, instead of seeking the top spot, surprised those who saw him as Giusiana’s successor. Within the department, the most likely contenders for chief are longtime captains Scot Smithee and Debbie Moore. Both have expressed interest in the job, said Svardal.
Union leaders have yet to weigh in on their choice for chief, said Cpl. Jim Callahan, president of the Gilroy Police Officers Association.
“We haven’t made any decisions,” said Callahan. “It’s never been discussed.”
Leaders met Monday night, and planned a general union meeting for next Monday. Callahan declined to comment on the meetings, held in the wake of Giusiana’s retirement announcement. Some officers have questioned the “secrecy” of the chiefs’ retirements, which weren’t disclosed to the department until February, months after the deals were planned. Whether those concerns will affect Smithee and Moore’s chances at being chief remains to be seen. Officers might associate the two captains, members of command staff, with the chiefs and their actions.
Baksa plans to advertise for the chief’s job in April at the earliest, posting the job in statewide government and professional journals.
“We want to assure the general public that we’re getting the best person, and there’s no requirement that it has be from outside, or from inside,” Baksa explained in a February interview. “Who we ultimately choose depends on their qualities, the match, how well they match with this organization and what the organization needs.”
A potential wild card is the big-picture staffing study, which could dramatically reorganize the department. In December, City Council approved the four-month, $55,000 project, which brings in outside consultants to analyze who’s deployed where. Brown has speculated that his own position, Assistant Chief, could be eliminated, but said that the study is unlikely to seriously alter succession planning.
The department’s last succession plan, revised in April 2006, projected three sworn officers’ retirements in fiscal year 2007-2008, including the two chiefs, and a dozen more by 2016. Police also expect nine retirements among support staff, such as dispatchers and multi-service officers, within the decade.
