God, i am so lame
Gary's got his usual good stuff up this morning, Kevin outdid himself with his Bill Fields and Baby Bill story yesterday afternoon, Blazer has a great idea up for replacing the bridge over Main St., while all i've got this morning is a mindnumbingly dull report on the Police chiefs forum last night.
If police chief was an elected office, like Sheriff, then maybe a candidates forum would make sense. But really, the only purpose of this forum was to see if any of these guys would say something disqualifying in a public forum. My responses to the question sheet handed out (What are the candidate's strengths? What do you think the candidate brings to the City of Durham position?) are meaningless.
this is Patrick Baker's decision. He'll be receiving lots of behind the scenes lobbying. (There is one black, one hispanic, and one white candidate among the three finalists. Yeah, lots of lobbying.)
The real story, of course, will be how the various interest groups in Durham politics react to Baker's choice, regardless of who it is.
Meanwhile read the N&O story here, or the Herald Sun story here.
If police chief was an elected office, like Sheriff, then maybe a candidates forum would make sense. But really, the only purpose of this forum was to see if any of these guys would say something disqualifying in a public forum. My responses to the question sheet handed out (What are the candidate's strengths? What do you think the candidate brings to the City of Durham position?) are meaningless.
this is Patrick Baker's decision. He'll be receiving lots of behind the scenes lobbying. (There is one black, one hispanic, and one white candidate among the three finalists. Yeah, lots of lobbying.)
The real story, of course, will be how the various interest groups in Durham politics react to Baker's choice, regardless of who it is.
Meanwhile read the N&O story here, or the Herald Sun story here.
Labels: Durham, local politics, police
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5 Comments:
Barry, I'd frankly love to hear more of your comments on the Police Chief search. I think you're underestimating the influence citizen input can have. I mean, come on, you know a couple of city councilfolk are reading this!
Just looking at the H-S article, all three sounded competent, but Lopez stood out to me with his pledge of openness. Green turned me off with what sounded like a mostly "get tough" method, that didn't have a lot of focus on community policing. Hodge sounded fine, but a little too much like Chalmers II, and I don't think that's what the department needs at the moment.
By
Anonymous, at 12:50 PM
Oh, and the N&O gets a full demerit, a 5-minute stint in the penalty box, and a red card for this tagline:
"Crime runs high, the Duke lacrosse case still festers and someone is needed to run a police force"
You know, the N&O ran a decent Durham bureau once upon a time. These days, I think their motto for Durham would be, "Durham: You Mean That Place is Still There?"
By
Anonymous, at 12:52 PM
Agreed - all three sounded competent.
concerns i heard expressed among the common folk were that few if any current chiefs applied for the position, and of those who did, none were from cities of comparable size to Durham. Also that now is probably not the best time to be hiring from within.
i did express my personal thoughts to at least one council member.
I'm not sure at all what purpose the forum as constituted was supposed to serve. The "evaluation" forms i mentioned seemed to me to be useless as an instrument of measuring competence. They might gauge popularity, but only among that very small (65? 85?) portion of the citizenry that turned out.
I also was impressed by Mr. Lopez, of the three candidates, but again, impressing me should not have been the purpose of the forum. I did not see Mr. Green as the "get tough" candidate, aside from his Marine corps hair cut. In fact, Mr Hodge at one point said something like, if you're the type of person inclined to commit crimes, you have 3 choices: change, go to jail, or get out of my town.
Best story i heard last night, from an unnamed source, is that a certain former chief was one of the applicants. That chief was not invited to be a finalist.
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Barry, at 1:20 PM
Oh really? Theresa wants her old gig back? Worked so well as a stepping stool the last time...
What stood out in the Herald-Sun article for me, and this could be me misreading it, was his emphasis on his ability to get defendants moved to federal court rather than state court, along with his stating that work with the DA is paramount.
As for Hodge, he at least mentioned "change" as the first option. That's more than I've seen from some law enforcement types.
By
Anonymous, at 2:05 PM
i wasn't going to name any names.
By
Barry, at 2:25 PM
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