Police Officers Urge Santa Paula Council to Oust Longtime Chief

SANTA PAULA —  They said it was nothing personal, but this week one of the threads that hold this tightknit rural community together began to unravel as the city’s rank-and-file police officers told the City Council they had no confidence in their boss, Chief Walt Adair.

Adair, 54, who has been with the city’s 30-officer department for three decades and has been its chief since 1987, attributed the no-confidence vote to a labor dispute without elaborating.

“The matter raised by the Peace Officers Assn. at the City Council meeting is a labor relations issue and as such it can only be appropriately addressed by the city manager,” Adair said Tuesday.

But union officials said Adair was mistaken.

“The feeling of the majority of our membership is that this is not a labor issue and it is not about money,” said Officer Mark Trimble, union president. “Our membership is willing to forgo any type of raise . . . to change our leadership.”

Probably the most serious criticism the union leveled against Adair at a City Council meeting Monday night is that he “put officers’ lives in danger due to his failure to maintain an up-to-date knowledge of law enforcement tactics.”

Asked to elaborate on that and several other points, Trimble said the union would be forwarding to the City Council specific examples of what it felt was Adair’s “inability to effectively run the Police Department.”

“We respect his 30 years of law enforcement service to this community and we appreciate that time, but it’s time for new and progressive leadership,” Trimble said. “This is not meant to be personal, it’s a call for accountability.”

City Manager Murray Ward said that sort of criticism cannot really be answered.

“So far they haven’t provided any specifics so I can’t really address that. . . .,” Ward said. “I deal in facts not ephemeral things.”

*

City leaders said the discord within the Police Department, the second-smallest law enforcement agency in the county, would not affect public safety. But people in Santa Paula were not so sure.

“A problem like this you need to fix,” Mary Alice Washburn said after dropping off a letter at the post office. “They really should listen to the police officers; they’re the ones who are out there every day and know what’s going on.”

Outside the Ventura County Market near City Hall, resident Carmen McGinley said the conflict within the department concerns her, but she thinks the police officers will continue to work professionally.

“I know a few of the officers--you can’t live in this town and not know a few--and I don’t think they would let that kind of thing get in the way of doing their job,” McGinley said. “And I have never heard anything bad said about Chief Adair, so I’m not sure what this is all about.”

City Council members said they wanted more information before weighing in on the issue.

“It’s disturbing and it’s frustrating to have these accusations flying but I don’t have anything concrete to work with,” Councilman Jim Garfield said. “Obviously there is discontent in the Police Department and they say it’s the police chief to blame. I say we need to have that substantiated.”

*

Trimble said the union took the vote in August after more than two years of frustration with trying to make changes in the department. The vote against Adair was overwhelming, with 92% of the union members expressing no confidence in the chief, he said.

Last year the discord was so great that a committee was formed to look into it. After a few months’ study, the committee called the Public Safety Strategy Team released a report concluding that morale was so low that more than one-third of the officers on the force were considering leaving.

Part of the reason for such low morale was the pay. Although Santa Paula has Ventura County’s second-highest crime rate, its officers are the lowest-paid among the six law enforcement agencies in the county.

The situation was bad enough that some department critics last year recommended that the city contract with the Sheriff’s Department for police services.

In response, the City Council asked the city manager to talk to each of the department’s 30 officers and assess what was going on. His December report to the council emphasized the need to find more money and to add officers to the force. The report also noted that many of the rank-and-file officers saw Adair as a distant administrator uninterested in day-to-day police work.

But union officials said Ward ignored much of what officers told him.

“Mr. Ward’s report was not an accurate portrayal of what was told to him,” Trimble said. “We felt we had to take these steps or nothing would be done.”

The focus of much of the criticism was on Adair’s management of the department. In the past, Adair has been criticized for responding too slowly to problems, but this time the criticism was much harsher.

Along with accusations of endangering officers’ lives, the union said Adair failed to plan and manage finances, provide a professional work environment and meet the law enforcement needs of the city.

*

Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa said something needs to be done.

“This is a matter of urgency,” Espinosa said. “We should not have this hanging over the chief of police’s head without a speedy resolution.”