Monday, October 20, 2008

Trying to make sense of the search for a new police chief

The Record's blogs have been on the ball with some great posts on the search for a new Police Chief. The verdict? It's not going to be easy to get someone good.

David Siders brought great shame to Christian Burkin by giving us some background on previous searches and ultimatly comes to the conclusion that the city will probably conduct a nationwide search for a replacement.

Christian comes back with a great post about just how difficult that search will be because of the city's budget problems. In the end, we can't recruit "the best and the brightest" as Ann Johnston suggests we should because the best and the brightest make $100,000 more than Stockton could afford even before the budget cuts. And even if we could afford a top flight police chief, it's not like he'd be roaming the streets himself makng us safer, we'd still need more cops.

To us the solution is clear, we know of a man who is not only the best and brightest, but can make an impact on the streets. A man with a machine-like work ethic. Someone who won't look at his sweetass pension plan and decide to retire to spend more time with his wife and kids because he doesn't have any. You want big city experience? He cleaned up the mean streets of Detroit when noone else wanted to or could. The choice is clear, Robocop for Police Chief.

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