Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Reinvention

When I took office as Mayor in December of 1997, the Albuquerque Police Department was a centralized and somewhat fossilized bureaucracy.  There were lots of problems and I had run  on a platform of bringing some new ideas to the department.  Specifically I was interested in Community Policing.  Here is an article link about the Police Chief I hired to bring it about, Jerry Galvin.

Subsequent administrations dismantled the Community Policing we set up and the bunker mentality returned to the Command staff at APD.  And now the the current administration seems to think Community Policing as something proposed by our hapless Chief Gordon Eden is a great idea.  It is laughable that we have to start this all over again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim be carefull about taking credit for something that worked. If golden hair follows through and brings back community policing , it might not work with Garden of Eden in charge and Goo Goo eyes supporting his Chiefs program. Then guess what Jim , they will blame you, kind of like the way Susie blames Bill. The reason it worked for you is that you had a police dept that was willing to hit the streets and try to be part of a community solution. No one trusts this band of clowns Jim. Oh how we wish for the good old days before Marty's Movidas.

Anonymous said...

Eden almost shed a tear, as Berry pulled the puppet strings and said " we need a return to work" program again. Why so we can keep all the problem children on the dole? Why not new blood or are the Big screen tv suburbans and air boats failing at recruiting new fresh faces? The only thing return to work does is pay someone twice for sitting on his ass! Berry forgets that 75 percent of the ones that went back to work were Not on the street. Do you really think a 45 year old veteran is gonna come back as a patrolman and take orders from 25 year old Sgts. Did not work then and won't work now. I know many who returned and could not run one block in full gear but they fixed that by workin in the office. So much for all their vast experience. After your twenty Leave and let someone have a chance at a career . Stop being so damn gready.

Anonymous said...

Community policing has been how forward thinking cities have been doing it for quite awhile. The Journal failed when it didn't put it in the proper context or mention Jim's efforts to upgrade our police department. A few minutes on the internet would have turned up dozens of examples of how community policing works better. In fact that's one of the main demands of the Black lives Matter movement. It's not like this is a big secret. Instead the Journal used the story to give the current chief a platform to promote himself and for the mayor to politik for his pet scheme to rehire retirees, with nonsense like this:

"The mayor said getting help from the state Legislature is better than other options – such as offering bonuses for officers willing to transfer in from other departments, a move that could deplete the police force in smaller cities."

I've never seen such utter bs. Since when is it our mayor's job to worry about that? It sounds like he wants to micro manage the state's economy like a Stalinist. What about private industry and other governments who are hurting because of all the other people working for city government? In fact the mayor should resign and go to work for the Big Lots down the street from me because they sure seem depleted when I'm trying to find something in there.