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Top-cop shopping

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Has Menino already decided on the next police commissioner? And if so, why won’t he name him or her till November?

By: DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
8/15/2006 6:45:20 PM

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SHOPPING: If it's going to take six months, why engage in a full-scale search?
It’s been three months since former commissioner Kathleen O’Toole announced she was leaving the Boston Police Department, and only one bit of information has been confirmed: Mayor Thomas Menino isn’t making the mistake of rushing to name her replacement. In fact, a source close to the selection process says the mayor is not likely to swear in a new top cop until at least November.

That doesn’t quite jibe with the sense of urgency with which Menino spoke of the search process in May, after O’Toole announced her plans to depart.

And if the mayor has been working quietly behind the scenes, it hasn’t been through predictable channels. The Phoenix recently surveyed police chiefs in more than a half-dozen big cities and learned that none had been contacted by anyone from Boston. Nor had anyone heard rumors about potential candidates.

“Usually I hear something,” one police chief told the Phoenix. The candidates for the open post in Newark, New Jersey, are common knowledge, and there’s some scuttlebutt about the open Minneapolis job, he says. “I’m not hearing anything about Boston.”

Another police chief from a city similar in size Boston to said he wasn’t even aware the top job was open.


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Of course, it’s possible that they are maintaining a tactical silence, and that more is happening in the search process than meets the eye. But local observers are wondering if anything is happening at all. Which begs the question: if it’s going to take six months or more to name a commissioner, why not engage in a full-scale search process, instead of relying on the small “advisory committee” Menino appointed in June?

To some, the answer is simple. Menino has already decided who he’s going to name, but he wants to appear as if he’s going through some sort of process. That perception is bolstered by the fact that Menino is relying on candidate suggestions from a handpicked advisory committee whose recommendations he’s free to ignore. Had Menino relied on a formal search committee, he would have had to choose a commissioner from the committee’s list.

Others, like Barry Mullen, head of the Florida Corridor Neighborhood Association in Dorchester, speculate that Menino is delaying his announcement until winter comes and the shooting spree ebbs. And some suspect Menino is relishing the role of top cop while the position is unfilled. Interim commissioner Albert Goslin, who was named superintendent-in-chief by Menino on May 12 and acting commissioner on July 1, is, after all, a placeholder; he’s not going to launch new anti-crime efforts or make any important appointments without the okay from City Hall — and he certainly won’t embarrass the mayor, as O’Toole did, by publicly stating that he needs more men in uniform.

Whatever the reasons for the delay, shootings are continuing to rise throughout Boston, BPD morale is plummeting, and the odds of landing a great commissioner may be rapidly on the decline.

No contact
Rather than assembling a search committee and hiring a headhunting firm to do a full-scale search, as he did three years ago when hiring O’Toole, Menino has given the task of identifying candidates to his advisory committee, led by former John Hancock chairman David D’Alessandro and made up of three prominent local representatives of racial minorities: former district attorney Ralph Martin, Minister Don Muhammad, and Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion CEO Vanessa Calderon-Rosado. Members of the Police Executive Research Foundation (PERF) board also confirm to the Phoenix that the advisory team has sought suggestions from their organization.

Menino and his advisors are clearly not taking advice from the Phoenix, though. Back in May, we suggested the names of eight police chiefs, from Santa Ana to Miami, worth considering. The Phoenix was able to reach four of them last week, and all four say they have not been contacted about the Boston job. Another has since left for a position outside the country.

It’s not as if those chiefs aren’t interested. “If I received a call about it, I would listen to what they had to say,” says Norman Williams, chief of police in Wichita, Kansas. And Theron Bowman of Arlington, Texas, and Carl Waters of Santa Ana, California, said much the same thing.

In fact, the desirability of the Boston job underscores the sense that the city isn’t trying to lure anyone. “I would think that you will find really talented people” who want the job, says Dean Esserman, police chief in Providence, Rhode Island.

Yet that may not be the case. And many of the outside candidates from the last Boston search don’t seem to be available. Joseph Carter, chief of the MBTA police, has reportedly declined interest in the job, as has Ed Davis, chief of police in Lowell. Edward A. Flynn, former state public-safety secretary, was appointed police chief in Springfield earlier this year. Phil Keith, former chief in Knoxville, Tennessee, is now Amber Alert manager for the Department of Justice. And Daniel Oates, who was chief in Ann Arbor, Michigan, took the chief’s job in Aurora, Colorado, last November.


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