City of Ithaca
Chief of Police Search Process
Group Says Chief Survey Not Skewed
Members of the city's police-chief screening committee expressed appreciation Wednesday for the number of police officiers who participated in a survey of characteristics they'd like to see in a new chief leader and said they were disappointed that more members of the community did not respond as well.
The committee met Wednesday evening partly in response to concerns raised earlier in the week that officers may have responded disproportionately to the survey. As many as half the forms rating desired qualities in a new chief came from police officers, and the committee sought to quiet fears that the process had broken down and become skewed.
"We feel confident that we've heard a lot of input and we will be using the input from the police and the rest of the community in making this decision," said committee member Roey Thorpe, a Democratic alderwoman from the 5th Ward.
In a process that began last fall, the screening committee has narrowed down the original 310 desired characteristics garnered from the public to 74, grouped into nine categories. At an earlier public forum, about 20 members of the public rated those nine in importance. About another 20 forms were returned to City Hall filled in by Ithaca police officers.
"We encouraged every member of the community to participate. The police department did participate and that is what we hoped would happen," said Bill Trochim of Concept Systems Inc., who is donating his services to facilitate public participation.
But members of the committee said the disproportionate response was due to lack of participation from the rest of the community. Some committee members pointed out that police offices have a vested interest in the process.
Trochim released his committee progress report that contained the nine categories with no priority rankings. That document will now assist the committee as it screens applicants for the mayor's final approval, expected in the spring.
During Wednesday's three-hour meeting, committee members questioned whether the sample pool had, in fact, been skewed and whether the controversey had been blown out of proportion. At moments, they also questioned the efficacy of the search process, since no measures are built-in to prevent one person or group stuffing the ballot with anonymous response forms.
"I think there were questions about this whole process from the beginning," said committee member Diann Sams, a 2nd Ward alderwoman.
Committee members also made several unsuccessful attempts to close the public meeting to come up with a unified response to the issues behind closed doors.
The Ithaca Journal
February 13, 1997
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