City of Ithaca
Chief of Police Search Process
A chief-choosing plan:
Council hears idea on how to get top cop
Journal Staff
ITHACA – The Common Council Committee of the Whole listened Wednesday night as two Ithacans outlined a proposal favored by the mayor for selecting the new police chief. Mary Kane Trochim and William Trochim, of Concept Systems Inc. on The Commons, said they would volunteer their services if council approved the plan.
“It’s going to be a fairly intensive, community-based process,” said William Trochim, adding that he developed many of the methods in the plan over his 16 years as a professor at Cornell University.
The draft proposal, which is broken down into five phases, allows for community input through public meeting s and other methods to be established by a start-up committee, he said.
“What we bring to the table that is unique is not the phases before us, but what we can provide to help the community negotiate through this organizational process,” he said.
While council members had questions about some of the details, the discussion ended with plans to talk about the proposal at later meetings.
“I think that we always have the illusion of community input and I don’t want that to happen,” said Alderwoman Roey Thorpe (D-5th Ward).
But the presenters said the plan, which is mapped out to end in January, is preliminary and flexible to allow for more time or input as needed.
And the two stressed that they did not want any part of the political struggle that has been waged between the mayor and Common Council over the selection process.
Cohen vetoed a plan to have the mayor name the new chief with Common Council’s approval.
The council will consider an override next month.
“We, as very interested private citizens want to see this done in a solid way. It is not in our interest to see it backfire,” Mary Kane Trochim said.
Police chief selection proposal
- Phase 1 – Start up: Committee forms, made up of four council members, the mayor and two council-appointed members. They will help form the selection committee, come up with general criteria for candidates, and map out the process.
- Phase 2 – Developing selection criteria: Through three public meetings and a formula for organizing community input, the selection committee will develop a set of criteria that candidates must meet.
- Phase 3 – Screening candidates: Resumes and application would be screened down to six candidates.
- Phase 4 – Interviewing candidates: Those six candidates would be flown I for interview with the selection committee and the community. They would be narrowed down to three candidates.
- Phase 5 – Final selection: The final candidates would be visited in their home communities before the mayor would make the final decision. Could be concluded as soon as January.
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This project is sponsored in part by:
Concept Systems Incorporated |
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