Police chief kept his promises to the community

Sooner than anyone would have expected, Costa Mesa is searching for a new police chief. After less than three years on the job, Chief John Hensley announced last week that he will retire at the end of June.

When longtime Chief Dave Snowden retired and the city hired Hensley away from Cypress, the new chief told the Daily Pilot: “I’m the kind of chief who’ll make house calls, do town hall meeting and focus groups. I try to listen to the people. They’ll get a lot of face time with me.”

On that count, Hensley seems to have been a success. In just his first year, complaints to the department dropped dramatically and have stayed low. During the past few months, Hensley had to live up to his promise to do house calls as he became the point man for the city’s controversial proposal to have police officers enforce immigration laws.

In general, the people to whom he’s had to explain the plan have given him high marks for his handling of a policy that was the City Council’s creation. Hensley rightly can be credited with keeping the Latino population in Costa Mesa from reacting even more strongly against the proposal ? and learning to distrust the city government and its officers in blue ? than they have. He has done a remarkable job managing this tense situation, right down to the expert handling of last weekend’s protest.

It appears that Hensley was less successful in handling the Police Department, however. By his own admission, despite trying to open up communication lines with staff and working toward agreements on policy changes, there was a rift between himself and his staff. His efforts to make the department more professional ? requiring detectives to dress in business attire, for instance ? reduce overtime costs and focus his officers on handling “quality of life” issues, such as loud trucks and litter, were unpopular and in many ways a decided change from his predecessors’ ways of doing things.

Hensley is unapologetic about not changing things just because employees were unhappy: “I don’t think it would have been the right thing to do because it’s more important to serve than to be popular,” Hensley told the Pilot last week, following the announcement of his retirement.

That is a commendable position ? but one that he is now taking from a post-retirement position. We hope that he is happy to be sleeping more soundly and that he does feel he’d done all he could at the department. Anyone who has worked as a police officer for 26 years deserves an easy retirement.

Hensley’s departure, of course, means the city will have to look for a replacement. Opinion is split on just how difficult that task will be, mainly because of the city’s planned immigration policy. Might knowing that such enforcement will be part of the job keep some good candidates from applying? Perhaps. But the issue may also have raised Costa Mesa’s profile enough that extremely qualified candidates will look at the job ? ones who may have bypassed a city its size.

Just what quality of applicants the city will get is anyone’s guess. Just what qualities the City Council will look for is an equally big question.

Given the tense climate resulting from the immigration plan, the council will need to be open and public during the coming hiring process.