Voters to weigh in on how city finds future fire, police chiefs

Oct. 30—It's not every day a voter gets to weigh in on important policies for a city's police and fire departments. In fact, it's usually not even every couple of years.

Yet in just over a week, those living within Bakersfield city limits will decide whether future police and fire chiefs will still have to come from inside their respective departments.

Currently, the city's charter calls for just that.

The concept of Measure L isn't exactly a new one, in terms of discussing whether such a change would be a best practice for a public safety agency. But City Council members seem to be relatively tight-lipped about the choice.

"Well, it was really a mandate for the police chief. It was part of the stipulation to the California Department of Justice," said City Councilman Chris Parlier, who represents Ward 7 in south Bakersfield. He added that he wishes the discussion could have been bifurcated, instead of having both departments lumped together in one measure.

On the 37th page of the 66-page agreement with the DOJ, stipulation No. 124 calls for the Bakersfield City Council "to propose a charter amendment for the November 2022 General Election which will seek to permit the appointment of a person from an external agency to the position of chief of police."

The question on the ballot for voters is relatively straightforward:

"Shall the Bakersfield City Charter be amended to remove all requirements that the Fire Chief and Police Chief be appointed from within their respective departments?" according to text provided by Mary Bedard, auditor, controller and county clerk for Kern.

But the issue appears to be a sensitive one.

Neither Parlier, who sits on the city's Safe Neighborhoods and Community Relations Committee, nor Ward 1 Councilman Eric Arias, who represents an area adjacent to Parlier's in the city's southeast and chairs the committee, were willing to come out for or against the measure in interviews this past week. Councilman Andrae Gonzales, the third person on the committee, did not respond to a request for comment as of this story's publication.

While the city first heard the suggestion eight years ago, the ballot move actually followed a four-year investigation by the state's attorney general, which found BPD practices exhibited a pattern of unreasonable force, stops, searches and seizures and failed to exercise appropriate supervision, in addition to other violations, according to previous reporting in The Californian.

Arias noted that, as with any issues, there are always two sides: "I think that voters will have to determine which way they want to go. I think there are benefits and consequences to both options. And voters are just going to have to make a decision, to be honest with you," Arias said.

"I'll just lay it out for voters," he continued, when pressed further. "On one hand, voters will have an opportunity to cast their vote in support of this, to say that we want to have the very best leadership in our city and we would like for internal candidates to compete with potentially some of the candidates who apply from outside the department. That's on one side of the argument. The other side of the argument is, we want city leadership to be led by individuals who ... know the department well and who know the staff well and also know the geography and the city and our community. Those individuals tend to have more experience and understand what it takes to get the job done at the local level here in the city of Bakersfield."

The move was first recognized as a level four priority — the lowest of four types of recommendations for best practices — in a study completed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2014, which was commissioned by the City Council for about $100,000.

That report noted the city's policy on executive leadership was "an uncommon practice in law enforcement agencies in the United States," and presented potential challenges in a number of ways, namely limiting the pool of applicants, but also the city's potential for policy growth and outside thinking that can bring new and innovative change.

For fire chief, the city charter currently states: The chief of the Fire Department shall be appointed, without examination, by the city manager from among the membership of the Bakersfield Fire Department. (The use of gendered pronouns is more inclusive for deputy fire chief, which notes "he or she shall be in charge of such department" in the chief's absence.)

For police chief, the policy is somewhat more nuanced: "No member of the Police Department shall be eligible for promotion to the position of chief of police until he shall have had five years experience as a regularly paid peace officer, three years of which must have been served in the Bakersfield Police Department immediately preceding the date of his promotion," according to the city charter.

But the International Association of Chiefs of Police report said: "An external recruiting process for chief of police and assistant chief of police would provide Bakersfield with the opportunity to draw applicants from among senior officials serving these agencies. In addition to in-state applicants, executive level vacancies frequently attract talent from out-of-state law enforcement agencies. These candidates often possess impressive experience and education needed or desired by hiring authorities."

It also notes that when these searches are opened up, they generally result in dozens of applicants.

It's not publicly clear how the rank-and-file feel about the changes, as neither current city Fire Chief John Frando or Police Chief Greg Terry are able to comment on the ballot measure, citing city policy that prohibits them from weighing in on the matter. Neither the head of the officers' union nor the firefighters union responded to a request for comment.

However, in response to the announcement of the DOJ agreement in August 2021, Terry issued a statement indicating how he felt overall about the state's concerns over BPD policy.

"The Bakersfield Police Department holds itself to the highest standards of conduct to all of our residents. We do everything possible to make sure our community is safe and our residents are treated with respect," Terry said in August 2021. "We believe the state's concerns are unfounded and we have nothing to hide."

At the time, he said he didn't want the agency focusing on denials, but rather "looking forward, and utilizing a very transparent agreement to demonstrate our police department is professional, accountable, transparent and connected to the community, and that's what my focus is on."

In the spring, one of Bakersfield's most ardent ballot watchdogs, the head of the local Kern Taxpayers Association, pointed out that Measure L might be a way to do that with a fresh perspective.

"In a changing world — and I think anybody agrees that we're in a changing world, especially with police — you are bringing people up through the ladder that only know one way, the Bakersfield way," Michael Turnipseed, executive director of the Kern County Taxpayers Association, said in a previous phone interview with The Californian. "I'm not necessarily saying that's bad. I'm not necessarily saying it's good. But I think there are other ways out there, there are other very successful police departments in the country that operate in a different way."