Friday, January 13, 2006
What Do The Police Think?
Continuing on with this bag of snakes our young jailer/mayor
has dumped on the floor before us - the question of training and
authorizing Costa Mesa police officers to become immigration
screeners - there is a question that has been rattling around in
my head. That question is, "What does our police chief and his
senior staff think about this plan?"
One would have thought that, as a responsible leader, Mayor Mansoor would have polled his police chief and his staff on this issue at the very beginning as part of the vetting process. One would have thought that he would have seen the wisdom of holding a study session during which some of the more potentially contentious parts of this plan could be hashed out before a decision was to be made - to give the public and the other members of the council a chance to contemplate the ramifications of this plan before voting on it. Of course, our mayor either didn't have the wisdom to take that approach or had already made up his mind and didn't care what anyone else, including the chief, felt about it. I'm betting on the second choice.
I find myself wondering how Chief John Hensley feels about this issue. I wonder if he feels this plan will actually make the streets of Costa Mesa safer. A speaker before the council on January 3rd asked that question, but there was no response either from the mayor or the chief.
It's important to know whether our police department is behind this plan, or if they have misgivings about it's potential effectiveness. It's important to know whether the chief feels this is a good way to spend the money it's going to cost.
If the real professionals in law enforcement, like our chief and his senior staff, feel this plan is a good one and it will make our streets safer, then it's something to seriously consider. We already know that former chief Dave Snowden - a man who served this city with distinction for nearly two decades before moving on to head up the Beverly Hills Police Department - doesn't support the idea, because he recently wrote a commentary in our local newspaper of record, the Daily Pilot, telling us as much.
Chief Hensley is in a tough spot on this one. He does, after all, work at the pleasure of the City Council through the City Manager. I suppose it would be possible, if he spoke out in opposition, for the Mayor and his majority to demand he be fired. Considering the arrogance of the current majority on the council, I could see that happening.
Still, I wonder how he feels about this whole thing. I also wonder how he feels about having to take his marching orders from a deputy sheriff who has chosen to be a jailer - a place where rookies typically start their careers before moving on to broader, more demanding assignments. It seems to me that a heavy dose of working in the jail, where you are exposed to the worst among us, might tend to warp one's perspective on the real world. Mansoor's heavy hand on this, and many other issues, tends to support that hypothesis.
In the meantime, Mansoor's face is all over the media and he's become the darling of those radical citizens of this country whose idea of immigration reform is to slam the door shut, mine the border and sweep all those among us with Spanish surnames from our land without consideration for the economic, social or moral consequences of that action. His supporters include those hot-heads whose idea of debate is trying to shout you down with a bullhorn or to sing/scream the words to "God Bless America" at the top of their lungs at a city council meeting. These are the people who have made Costa Mesa the tip of the spear in their misguided battle and who have made Mayor Mansoor the poison on the tip. These are the people that have embraced our young jailer/mayor and who will likely carry him on their shields to higher office.
Such is the sad condition of our city today.
12:12 pm pst
One would have thought that, as a responsible leader, Mayor Mansoor would have polled his police chief and his staff on this issue at the very beginning as part of the vetting process. One would have thought that he would have seen the wisdom of holding a study session during which some of the more potentially contentious parts of this plan could be hashed out before a decision was to be made - to give the public and the other members of the council a chance to contemplate the ramifications of this plan before voting on it. Of course, our mayor either didn't have the wisdom to take that approach or had already made up his mind and didn't care what anyone else, including the chief, felt about it. I'm betting on the second choice.
I find myself wondering how Chief John Hensley feels about this issue. I wonder if he feels this plan will actually make the streets of Costa Mesa safer. A speaker before the council on January 3rd asked that question, but there was no response either from the mayor or the chief.
It's important to know whether our police department is behind this plan, or if they have misgivings about it's potential effectiveness. It's important to know whether the chief feels this is a good way to spend the money it's going to cost.
If the real professionals in law enforcement, like our chief and his senior staff, feel this plan is a good one and it will make our streets safer, then it's something to seriously consider. We already know that former chief Dave Snowden - a man who served this city with distinction for nearly two decades before moving on to head up the Beverly Hills Police Department - doesn't support the idea, because he recently wrote a commentary in our local newspaper of record, the Daily Pilot, telling us as much.
Chief Hensley is in a tough spot on this one. He does, after all, work at the pleasure of the City Council through the City Manager. I suppose it would be possible, if he spoke out in opposition, for the Mayor and his majority to demand he be fired. Considering the arrogance of the current majority on the council, I could see that happening.
Still, I wonder how he feels about this whole thing. I also wonder how he feels about having to take his marching orders from a deputy sheriff who has chosen to be a jailer - a place where rookies typically start their careers before moving on to broader, more demanding assignments. It seems to me that a heavy dose of working in the jail, where you are exposed to the worst among us, might tend to warp one's perspective on the real world. Mansoor's heavy hand on this, and many other issues, tends to support that hypothesis.
In the meantime, Mansoor's face is all over the media and he's become the darling of those radical citizens of this country whose idea of immigration reform is to slam the door shut, mine the border and sweep all those among us with Spanish surnames from our land without consideration for the economic, social or moral consequences of that action. His supporters include those hot-heads whose idea of debate is trying to shout you down with a bullhorn or to sing/scream the words to "God Bless America" at the top of their lungs at a city council meeting. These are the people who have made Costa Mesa the tip of the spear in their misguided battle and who have made Mayor Mansoor the poison on the tip. These are the people that have embraced our young jailer/mayor and who will likely carry him on their shields to higher office.
Such is the sad condition of our city today.
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