SBPD article
By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO -- City Hall officials are holding off on a plan to give a local criminologist and former inland police chief an inside look at the Police Department.
Until recently, City Hall and police figures had discussed the possibility of hiring Cal State San Bernardino professor Larry Gaines and former Fontana and Rialto chief Frank Scialdone to evaluate management issues within the Police Department.
Those discussions followed events in September when the Police Officers Association made a very public break with Police Chief Michael Billdt's administration. Union leaders voted no confidence in Billdt, who soon after announced that he plans to retire in March.
Mayor Pat Morris has steadfastly supported Billdt, but also allowed that the city's law enforcement efforts could benefit from expert analysis of issues that contributed to the breach between police brass and rank-and-file. That's where Gaines and Scialdone would have come in.
But now it appears as if City Hall and police will wait until a new chief is in town to decide if any kind of police audit will be worthwhile.
"Chief Billdt's successor, together with the interested parties, are expected to reevaluate the need, purpose and intent of this study once the new Police Administration is in place next Spring," interim City Manager Mark Weinberg wrote in an email Monday.
Billdt affirmed Weinberg's message.
"That's exactly correct," he said.
Gaines said the city's interest in hiring him and Scialdone had "sort of waned." Scialdone simply said it was the city's call whether he would work the project or not.
Gaines and Scialdone would have been called upon to study three issues that the police union had cited as ongoing problems. The contract to hire the pair was said to be worth $24,500, which is $500 short of the amount that would have required a City Council vote.
The three issues that Gaines and Scialdone were set to study the department's use of force reporting procedures, the length of time it takes to complete internal affairs probes and lack of an iron-clad policy to determine whether officers accused of misconduct are investigated internally or by outside agencies.
Mayoral chief of staff Jim Morris said that the decision to put the police study on hold makes sense because whoever takes charge of the Police Department in March wouldn't be in a position to take ownership of any proposals that Gaines and Scialdone may make before that person takes office.
Also, police union president Rich Lawhead said City Hall may as well save the dollars that would have been used to hire Gaines and Scialdone.
"You're going to have a whole new administration. Why waste the city's money?," he asked.
However, 1st Ward Councilwoman Esther Estrada-- who previously criticized the proposed review because she was concerned it would not have addressed all issues affecting the Police Department -- maintained that putting the probe on hold suggests that Morris and Weinberg are not doing enough to improve the Police Department.
"I guess we are no farther along with the new City Manager than the last one," she said. "It doesn't surprise me."
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I can barely believe this.
The plan, allegedly, the whole time was to hire a new police chief, yet that is suddenly an argument to NOT do an internal audit??
Morris, Billdt, etc. just gave you and the public a load of bald-faced lies. They've jerked everybody around from Day 1.
Now they're doing it again, more flagrantly than ever.
The bottom line is they proposed this idea of an audit to placate the union and the public when everybody was convinced that the chief and mayor were corrupt and had to go. It worked, and the intensity lessened. Now that it has and everybody has put shelved their demands for the chiefs resignation, the mayor and his crew have decided it is politically feasible to just give up the whole investigation.
Imagine how smug and grinning Billdt was when he told you that it is "exactly correct" that he won't be investigated.
Pretty amazing
I can barely believe this.
The plan, allegedly, the whole time was to hire a new police chief, yet that is suddenly an argument to NOT do an internal audit??
Morris, Billdt, etc. just gave you and the public a load of bald-faced lies. They've jerked everybody around from Day 1.
Now they're doing it again, more flagrantly than ever.
The bottom line is they proposed this idea of an audit to placate the union and the public when everybody was convinced that the chief and mayor were corrupt and had to go. It worked, and the intensity lessened. Now that it has and everybody has put shelved their demands for the chiefs resignation, the mayor and his crew have decided it is politically feasible to just give up the whole investigation.
Imagine how smug and grinning Billdt was when he told you that it is "exactly correct" that he won't be investigated.
Pretty amazing
This is terrible. Really really bad.
May be we should just give Billdt a hefty severance package too for such a job well done.
May be he can take Weinberg with him.
The SBPD is polluted with lazy, half witted, chauvenistic male officers who have done nothing for my family to protect and serve when we needed them too.
I have specific examples of which I have entertained thoughts of formal complaint but have not done so for the reasons obvious in this article.
When the time is right, and I know I will be heard for my concerns (not to mention how my daughters and I have suffered due to the lack of interest or action on the part of San Bdno Law Enforcement) I will come forward and do what I can to help the cause to shed light on the inadequacies and flat out misconduct so rampant in our City's police force.
Until then I'm just nauseated when I read things like this. It's absolutely shameful and it needs to stop. Something has GOT to chance - and we need to address the issue of accountability.
I will keep it simple. What a bunch of misinformed, ignorant people making assumptions. If only they knew. And no I'm not with the administration of the PD or at city hall.
The absolute last thing that police departments need are academics analyzing raw data in order to solve problems that extend into internal management police disciplinary/labor issues. Good move by the council to cancel the study, which would have been a colossal waste of time and taxpayer dollars. I am certain, based on the character of the officers in the San Bernardino Police Department, that the new administration and union representatives will be able to smooth over any internal strife that exists.
And for those of you that seem to think that the SBPD is rampant with misconduct and lacking in accountability...you should think before speaking, because you apparently have no concept of what truly constitutes "police misconduct."
You are lucky to have the men and women of SBPD serving you.