Peter, by "real change" do you mean outsourcing the police department? Danielson's comments to the press seem to indicate otherwise. Do you know something we don't?

I place a lot of value on the quality of the management team. With Danielson, Conners and Flint we have the best management team that the Town has had in over 20 years. They will deal with the problem of high quality police services at an acceptable cost - how they decide to achieve that goal will be up to them

The only thing I find disquieting is the "Elk Grove Connection." City manager (interim), the bogus investigator of the APD and the "efficiency expert." All have that connection. May be nothing, but it does make me wonder.

Good management teams are seldom made up of strangers. If you saw someone perform well in an earlier encounter what better recommendation is that than a resume of someone whom you have never met or worked with?

When Chief Guerra, a twenty-five year respected veteran of APD, was appointed, Peter Carpenter complained there was no public process. Now when Danielson appoints an unknown former crony, Carpenter says it's wonderful. Where was the public process this time?

This is simply sending the wrong message to the officers and will hurt morale, retention and recruitment. There are qualified internal candidates to be chief. When there are qualified internal candidates, we should always look to them for promotion, otherwise we destroy any notion of a career path in the APD.

Great work destroying the morale that was built up over a period of many years after the council ruined it in the late 90s.

Mr. Flint seems to have more complaints and lawsuits than APD..What about being fired "retired" from Santa Rosa and the many, many complaints...Just Google the man and ask yourself is there no Police Officer with a great reputation that Atherton can find?

IMHO appointing an Interim Police Chief is dramatically different than appointing a permanent Police Chief and therefore the value and importance of a public process is significantly less.

As for internal candidates, we have been there and done that to no avail with regard to significant change.

As for career paths in the APD the department is so small that there are virtually no viable career paths - one of my often stated reasons for supporting consolidation/outsourcing in order to create viable career paths.

As for Hypocrisy - why not just deal with the issues rather than childish name calling? Or at least be courageous enough if you are going to attack someone to use your real name - or did you?

We have offered him $14,000.00 per month

This concerns me:
Judge dismisses wrong termination lawsuit by former SR police captain
Posted by Ted Appel in Cities on May 1st, 2010 tags: Flint, lawsuit, Mitchel, police, Santa Rosa
3 comments related articles

Jamie Mitchel
By LORI A. CARTER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A federal judge has dismissed a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former Santa Rosa police captain and ordered him to pay the city’s legal costs for fighting the allegations against him.

Northern District Judge Susan Illston pre-empted a hearing that was set for Friday to discuss the city’s motion to dismiss Jamie Mitchel’s suit. Instead, she issued a ruling at the beginning of the week dismissing the remaining portions of the case. An earlier ruling denied other aspects of the claim.

After the ruling, Mitchel’s attorney filed a request for reconsideration because the state Supreme Court ruling upon which Illston based her order was partially overturned this week. Illston hadn’t ruled on the request by late Friday.

Mitchel said Friday if a reconsideration isn’t granted, he will appeal the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Santa Rosa City Attorney Caroline Fowler estimated the legal fees amount to $75,000 to $100,000.

Mitchel, 55, was fired in May 2008 during a tumultuous period for the Police Department. Several employees filed complaints with the city alleging gender discrimination, harassment and retaliation by then-police Chief Ed Flint. All four complaints named Flint and two named Mitchel, Flint’s second-in-command.

Flint was forced out, Mitchel was fired and the city paid the six complainants a total of more than $120,000 to resolve their grievances. No lawsuits were filed by the employees, some of whom no longer work for the city.

Mitchel then sued the city, saying he was improperly dismissed, his privacy rights were violated, he was discriminated against because he is a white man and that his arbitration hearing was improperly handled.

In seeking a dismissal, the city also sought monetary and procedural sanctions against Mitchel and his attorney, Scott Lewis of Santa Rosa, for what it called unsupported accusations and frivolous arguments.

Illston had harsh words for Mitchel, but didn’t award additional sanctions beyond attorney fees.

“The court agrees with the city that some of the plaintiff’s and Mr. Lewis’ conduct is sufficiently serious to warrant sanctions,” the ruling said. “The court does not believe it is appropriate to impose a monetary penalty.”

Illston awarded attorneys fees because as a police officer, Mitchel had agreed to binding arbitration of his dispute with the city. But in his reconsideration request, Lewis noted the recent high court case, which allows new hearings if there are procedural problems with the original arbitration hearing.

“Mr. Mitchel respectfully disagrees with the court’s ruling and it is subject to review on appeal,” he said. “He will not litigate this matter in the paper.”

The case has been expensive for both sides.

Santa Rosa’s legal bill for costs related to Mitchel’s termination is nearing a million dollars. As of last summer, the most recent accounting available, the cases, including Mitchel’s firing, Flint’s forced departure and damage repair within the Police Department, has cost the city more than $840,000.

Mitchel has said the city is pushing him to financial ruin. Still, he said, he intends to keep fighting.

“This is actually a David vs. Goliath case. It’s me, who is fighting the giant, the city of Santa Rosa, who has unlimited funds,” he said.

“I have limited resources and I’m trying to do the best I can to get the truth out.”

The city is set to file its documentation for attorneys’ fees by May 14. Mitchel has a week to respond.

That article is of no concern Colleen. A Santa Rosa police captain was fired, a settlement was made, and after the settlement he attempted to re-litigate the same issues and had his case dismissed and the highly unusual step of the judge awarding attorney's fees to the city because she deemed his case to be frivolous. This cannot a bad reflection on the new police chief.

Hypocricy:

Viable internal candidates? You're joking right? The APD has huge problems part of which have been caused by the existing "corporate culture." The fastest way to straighten out APD, that is if the town wnats to retain its own police force, is to bring in an outsider that hasn't been poisoned by the current culture of the department.

Could somebody enlighten athertonians what the culture problems in APD are?
I am sure that people from MP or even LA know about these

dann:

the culture problems in APD are many, but primarily they think they can do anything to a citizen and get away with it. They believe they can falsify reports and get away with it. They basically think the town should kiss their rear ends. This culture exists because of a series of incompetent chiefs that allowed it to develop and did not discipline officers that should have been thus making the attitude of the officers there even worse. Get the picture?

Menlo Voter,

I still don't get it. The culture you describe is likely present in all PDs, FDs, etc. When you empower a group, then the group will have a power and the rest is human nature. To effectively minimize the negative effects, the city need to work on procedures etc, but then your message is devoid of substence so i won't get further into this.

dann:

why do you think many other cities do not have the problems Atherton is having? It is because they don't allow the culture that has overcome the APD to occur. As former law enforcement, I can tell you if this type of attitude starts to rear its head in many other departments that are properly mangaged it is dealt with and stopped. If you think my message is devoid of substance then you haven't been paying attention to what has been happening in your town.

Our chief did a major overhaul in the PD when he took over, including a leveling in rank that left some very angry senior officers who then left. One of them had a terrible rep that meant after arriving in EPA & continuing his behavior, he couldn't go anywhere else. Heck, he couldn't even testify on the stand. Remember all the Wolf Pack stuff in EPA PD? A lot of it was hyped by the media, but there was a Wolf Pack & resulting problems from testosterone, steroid use & power run amok. While I'm not saying this is APD's set of problems, where there's a vacuum left by poor management, corruption will often flourish- especially in a role where power is coveted.

Menlo voter,

My original message was a question, and the answer was too general without details. Just browsing news through time, one or another pd has issues. Now, i didn't say the problems should not be dealth with, but rather the opposite, but without knowing the details of the problems, can't tell if it is the internal pd problem or city's management problem. I remember people siting some scholarships to the head of apd, but then this is really not APD problem (everybody has a right to ask for bigger compensation package including fringe bennefits, not to say they have the right to get it), but rather the problem with city council and mostly it's inability to negotiate fair compensation.

There is one police officer who is fit to do the job mentally and physically. That officer is Traffic Sergent Anthony Kockler. His wealth of knowledge of traffic and police procedure towers over the other officers and even officers in the MPPD. This man can stand his ground and has never slipped off his horse. Will be looking forward to a new lieutenant Kockler.

[Post removed. Use Town Square to discuss issues, not to attack people.]

Don't know about you, but the post by "Anonymous, Inc." seems very sarcastic to me, and thus seems to be attacking Anthony Kockler, who by and large is a good police officer. I believe there is quite a bit of infighting in the APD right now.