The officers are in their probationary year, having been recently hired to the department, he said.
“The city is exploring or open to exploring all options for their retention,” Doyle said. “Certainly, the most ideal circumstance would be if a vacancy were to arrive, either by someone leaving or someone retiring between now and then.”
The officers had to complete the initial hiring phase, enter and finish the police academy, and serve a probationary period as cops, Doyle said.
The Glendale Police Officers’ Assn. is also trying to come up with solutions to retain the three officers, said Officer Larry Ballesteros, president of the union.
“The GPOA is looking at all avenues to retain these police officers,” he said. “Hopefully, we can keep them here. We are trying see what we can do to help.”
The Police Department and the city can’t afford to let officers go to other law enforcement agencies that are looking to hire already-trained officers, Ballesteros said.
“We don’t want to lose them,” he said. “We are doing everything we can because we don’t want to lose them to another agency.”
Officers who received layoff notices in past years were allowed to be hired into another position, Police Chief Ron De Pompa said. The three latest officers to fall into that possible category received their notices last week, he added.
“All three of them are great officers and great employees, and it would be a very sad day if and when we lose them,” he said.
The Police Department currently has open dispatcher positions and a jail custody position, he said.
“So there may be a possibility that they could hire into a lower classification until such time that we can rehire them back into a police officer classification,” De Pompa said.
