(Nov. 8, 2006) -- LB Deputy Chief of Police Tim Jackman has been selected as the new Chief of Police for the City of Santa Monica.

A release posted on the Santa Monica City Hall website says its city manager, P. Lamont Ewell, selected Jackman, a 23-year LBPD veteran and Deputy Chief for the past four years, following "a two-month, nationwide search. He takes charge as SM's new Police Chief on December 11.

SM Police Chief designate Jackman told LBReport.com, "I'm really excited to the going to Santa Monica. It's a great city. One of the most impressive things about it is the involvement of its citizens. As a police officer, what you want more than anything is an interested community and they are definitely interested. Santa Monica has challenges similar to our own [in Long Beach], including homelessness and gang violence issues, a lot of which are imported from neighboring communtiies, plus traffic problems and the normal urban issues one would expect to face. I think Santa Monica was looking for someone to work in partnership with the community, as we do in Long Beach, and I plan to do that."

The Santa Monica City Hall release states in pertinent part:

Among his many assignments, Deputy Chief Jackman served as LBPD's senior official responsible for evaluating an 80+ million gallon Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility proposed in the Port of LB. On April 22, 2005 Deputy Chief Jackman (and LBFD Fire Chief Dave Ellis) testified at a meeting of LB's Federal Legislation & Environmental Affairs Committee (members at that time: Colonna, Kell, Reyes Uranga) concerning an April 11-12, 2005 trip to Boston made at the direction of City Manager Jerry Miller to gather information about an LNG facility in Boston harbor (Everett, MA).

In methodically presented testimony, Deputy Chief Jackman cited a number of concerns...with the caveat that detailed analysis would would have to await a formal Environmental Impact Report:

Roughly six months later when the Port of LB issued its draft EIR, Deputy Chief Jackman was equally plain spoken in his testimony on behalf of LBPD and city management.

Called to testify as the last speaker at the end of a roughly two-hour Port of LB-conducted public meeting, Deputy Chief Jackman said the Port document's "Reliability and Safety" section includes "a number of data sources that appear questionable, particularly the statistics used to generate probability of terrorist attack" and "some of the information is contradictory, making it difficult to fully understand how the conclusion was reached that the project will not affect public safety."

Deputy Chief Jackman said that although the draft EIR indicated the LNG-project applicant ("Sound Energy Solutions") had offered to fund all necessary security/emergency management equipment and personnel costs on state and local agencies as a result of the project, the "size, scope frequency of use puts an unknown drain on police resources, unknown in part because there's not yet any basis for determining requirements on the police department. Mitigation is therefore unknown, as are the costs and potential impact to law enforcement and other public safety providers."

[The Port's responses to these and other issues in a final EIR may be released in the coming weeks.]

Santa Monica's imemdiate past president Police Chief, James T. Butts, Jr. left SMPD in August to accept a positon as Deputy Executive Director of Airport Law Enforcement & Protection Services at Los Angeles World Airports.

As previously reported by LBReport.com, Deputy Chief Jackman was also a finalist for Costa Mesa's new police chief. On the same day as SM made its announcement, Costa Mesa City Hall announced the appointment of the other finalist, Commander Christopher Shawkey of the Phoenix PD, as CM's new Police Chief.