“I just didn’t think, frankly, it was a good time to have that kind of unsettledness go on,” he said. “That’s why all I can say is it remains to be seen. We are not there yet to make a conclusion.”
When Starbird appointed De Pompa, he advised the City Council that the city would be in a budget crunch for a while.
“We had to confront the budget and significantly change in sort of an operational philosophy,” Starbird said. “We are going to give it some time to kind of stabilize before we launch into a recruitment, if we do a recruitment.”
If all three cities were to recruit at the same time, they could draw out the same candidates, Starbird said.
“I don’t imagine there has ever been a time that we have had interim positions, and essentially the positions open and in some state of flux, in all three cities at the same time,” he said.
Finding police chiefs is a challenge because other police departments are also recruiting, and some qualified candidates who are nearing retirement often stay within their own organization, officials said.
There has already been talk of giving the permanent spot to De Pompa, Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero said.
“I would say there is a lot of interest in a candidate that knows the Glendale [Police Department],” he said.
‘We’re going to be thoughtful and thorough’
Pasadena is already well into the public outreach process for selecting its police chief since Bernard Melekian left the post to take a job with the Justice Department.
The application deadline has been set at Jan. 15, and officials anticipate a decision by late spring. Pasadena City Manager Michael Beck, who will make the final decision, maintained that it was too early to tell whether the selection would come from within the department — Deputy Chief Chris Vicino is the interim chief — or from outside.
“We expect a rather strong response,” said Beck, estimating between 50 and 60 candidates. “Pasadena is a well-known department with a lot of visibility and a lot of opportunities.”
Though most of the selection process will be behind closed doors, residents in three community input meetings on the topic expressed concerns about the Police Department’s community relations.
The meetings bore four pages’ worth of itemized attributes that residents said they wanted the chief to embody, from someone who recognizes the whole community and gets out from behind the desk, to a candidate with an understanding of different cultures.
“We’re going to be thoughtful and thorough in our process,” Beck said.
“It’s fortunate that we have an opportunity to do so.”
