[City of LB release text] City Manager Pat West today announced the process for selecting a new Police Chief, should a vacancy occur as a result of the November 4, 2014 election. The City Manager plans to conduct an expedited recruitment process of internal candidates. All Long Beach Deputy Chiefs and Commanders will be eligible to apply for the position, and all interested candidates will be reviewed and interviewed.

"We have such strong internal candidates within our Police Department," said City Manager West. "Each and every member of our Police Command Staff are ready today to be Chief, giving Long Beach a strong, diverse pool of candidates to pick from."

The process will begin immediately following the November election, should it be necessary, and an announcement of a final decision is expected by mid-November to ensure a smooth transition. There is no expectation that an Interim Chief would be necessary.

The internal process West will use now contrasts with the process applied in early 2010, when he chose from outside LBPD's ranks and selected then-LAPD Deputy Chief McDonnell to replace LBPD Chief Anthony Batts. Batts exited to head Oakland's PD after publicly urging the LB City Council to budget additional police officers, a stance putting him on a collision course with city management and Mayor Bob Foster.

Contracts advocated by Foster in 2007 and 2008 with City Hall's largest public employee unions failed to include pension reforms...and became unsustainable in the 2008 economic downturn. Foster reacted by insisting the unions accept pension changes as he simultaneously cut taxpayer services in a process he called "proportional budget reductions" (that as a practical matter disporportionately impacted LBPD as the largest general fund spending item.)

When Chief McDonnell arrived in early 2010 (taking office in mid-March 2010), he acknowledged, "We're going to have to be that much more creative, to be able to do the job as well as we have in the past with less resources" and added "I'm...sensitive to the fact that we are in tough budget times...We're going to do the best with what we have..."

Since then, Long Beach Council majorities have adopted annual budgets that produced the largest reductions in LBPD officers for taxpayers in the more than 100 year history of the City of Long Beach.

The choice of a police chief is a City Manager prerogative; it doesn't require Council approval. (The City Manager is ultimately an employee of the City Council.)

LBPD's new chief will enter with what the City Council (Schipske, Gabelich, Neal dissenting in Sept. 2011) left Chief McDonnell: roughly 200 fewer officers than Long Beach had in 2008-09...including the complete budgeted elimination of LBPD's former field anti-gang unit (by Sept. 2014 unanimous Council budget vote under Mayor Garcia.) The Council has for the past two years restored funding for replenishment police academy classes, a priority for Chief McDonnell, which has stabilized staffing (for now) at a per capita level roughly equivalent to cutting about 30% of LAPD's officers.

LB reported violent crimes (which disproportionately affected some areas but not others) are at or near historic lows (as violent crime has also fallen in other cities.) However LB property related crimes -- notably residential burglaries -- have increased significantly citywide. Chief McDonnell has attributed the property crime increases in part to Sacramento's budget-propelled "realignment" of incarceration responsibilities that has sent some categories of convicted felons back to counties, where they may be paroled or released early.