Fresno mayor announces new search for police chief
Fresno Mayor Lee Brand during his final State of the City address Tuesday evening announced he will again launch the search for a new police chief.
Brand said the search will begin July 1, and Mayor-elect Jerry Dyer will work with him.
The State of the City event is hosted each year by the Fresno Chamber of Commerce. Typically, the event is held in a banquet hall to an audience of business and community leaders, but this year it was televised and streamed on KSEE 24 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Brand spoke about the pandemic and how it changed the city, calling it the “Tale of Two Cities.”
“We are all still learning how to manage this virus, and I believe we are doing better than most cities in protecting the health of the community and also allowing our economy to rebound,” he said. “We still face many challenges ahead and we’ll have many more hardships to endure. But in the end, we can all be proud of the way we have responded to every crisis put in front of us.”
The mayor presented keys to the city to Fresno County Public Health Director David Pomaville and Interim Health Officer Dr. Rais Vohra for their leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pao Yang, president and CEO of The Fresno Center, was honored with the Community Partner Award for his partnership with the city in the 2019 search for a new police chief and after the mass shooting at a large backyard football watch party in the Hmong community.
Police chief search
Brand in his address noted the new police reform commission and thanked local Black advocates for their work to move the conversation forward about policing and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We are all looking forward to the commission’s work so we can have an open and honest conversation about changing the way policing works in our city,” Brand said. “None of these changes will be effective without the right person leading them.”
It will be the second police chief search in as many years.
Fresno Police Chief Andy Hall was named chief in August 2019 ahead of Dyer’s retirement as police chief. Because of a city retirement program, Hall will be forced to retire in 2021.
During his 2016 campaign, Brand promised to engage the community in the police chief search. Last year, city officials held a number of community meetings and produced a survey seeking input on the next chief. But in the end, Brand and City Manager Wilma Quan appointed Hall, who did not apply for the job.
While Brand resolved to hire the next chief before he leaves office, Dyer also has expressed interest in choosing the successor for his old job. Dyer said this arrangement allows for Brand to honor his commitment while also providing a sense of security for candidates that they have the confidence of the next mayor.
Dyer said the city will conduct a national search and the process could take four or five months – or longer.
Much has changed in the city and nation since the last search, Dyer said.
“We’re now dealing with police reform, race relations, protests and the formation of the commission for police reform,” he said. “There’s a lot of dynamics that will impact the upcoming search for police chief. One thing is for certain: There needs to be significant community involvement and input.”
After working the job for 18 years, Dyer said the next chief should know how to balance keeping the community safe with building community trust, how to manage a budget and deal with the day-to-day crises.
“It’s important we take the time to get the right person in that position no matter how long that takes,” he said.
Community engagement and trust
After the last police chief process, city leaders have work to do to rebuild trust with the community, said Ashley Rojas, executive director of Fresno Barrios Unidos.
“It’s important to remind folks that the city falsely engaged community in a fraudulent process that they abandoned in the ninth hour and appointed a white man who never applied for the position in lieu of heeding the feedback and demands from community,” she said. “To expect trust is furthering the trauma that this system and leaders have caused to our community.”
Rojas said that process began with such rocky trust that Fresno Barrios Unidos published its own report of community feedback to the city, since the report the city produced was so difficult to read.
Rojas, who is part of the police reform commission, said the executive committee informed the commission from the start that the search for a new chief would begin shortly. The executive committee includes Brand; Councilmembers Esmeralda Soria, Miguel Arias and Luis Chavez; and former police officer and Councilmember Oliver Baines.
Commission members pushed back, noting that those who endured the most harm by police and the previous search process are also the most likely to have barriers to access to any virtual community engagement process, Rojas said. Commissioners recommended the executive committee return to feedback from the last process.
Moving forward, Rojas said community members will continue to participate in any community engagement efforts.
“This is an opportunity for the city and local leaders to affirm their own humanity and trustworthiness,” she said. “It’s not our community that has anything to prove in this moment.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 7:52 PM.