PO-PO, Patrick Doolin on mayoral role in PD [FP]

Last Thursday, I sent Forest Park Mayor Anthony Calderone an email asking him what role he saw the mayor having in supervising the police department.

(Forest Park has a commissioner form of government so the mayor is the commissioner for the police department as well as having the responsibility of being the mayor. This is different from other Proviso villages which mostly have village manager systems of government.)

Here's the original email:

Dear Mayor Calderone,

It seems like many of the questions and issues surrounding you and the Forest Park Police Dept revolve around the question, what is the mayor's role in the police department in the commissioner form of gov't?

Different people will have different answers to this question. Since I started writing this email it occurs to me I should ask Patrick Doolin the question too.

What do you think the mayor's proper role is in police matters in Forest Park?

Thank you for your time,

On Monday, Commissioner Patrick Doolin responded to my question. Doolin announced he will run for mayor next year.

The following is my position on the question you have posed to me in regard to the Mayor's role in police matters. I have responded on the assumption that you were not attempting to determine my knowledge of the authority granted by state statute as it is written for all to see. The Mayor's role under the commission form of government is clearly, though broadly outlined. I have responded based on how I would apply that authority as Mayor.

The Mayor is responsible for creating the mission of the department and setting polices by which the department, and its employees, shall operate. The chief of police is responsible for implementing that policy under the supervision of the Mayor. Though the Mayor is, by statute, the superintendent of the department, the Mayor is not a professional police administrator and should not approach the supervisory authority granted by statue as if they were. The first essential step in operating a successful municipal police department is hiring a competent police chief.

The Mayor and police chief must then have an initial meeting of the minds in which mission and policy are created, stated and implemented. The Mayor must assume the role of layperson in this relationship acting in the capacity of conduit in which the needs, wants and expectations of the Mayor, and more importantly the community, are clearly relayed to the police chief. The police chief, as a law enforcement professional, must in turn work with the Mayor to determine whether those expectations are reasonable and applicable based on the services provided by, and resources available to, the department. This is where the foundation of policy is born.

A municipal police department is a 24/7 operation in which many services, tasks and actions are performed. So much of what a police operation does carries significant liability for the village and its taxpayers. Ultimately, the Mayor is responsible for each and every action taken on behalf of the village by each and every one of its employees. The Mayor must be cognizant of the fact that the decisions and actions taken by these employees, especially police personnel, do affect taxpayers and will require, at times, intervention by the Mayor. This is an undeniable requirement of the office.

The Mayor cannot be involved in nor be expected to know the day to day operations of the police department. That said, the Mayor must have the ability to know when things are going right and when things are going wrong. This is, simply stated, easy to assess if the Mayor has established solid policy thereby establishing consistent performance expectations within the department. The Mayor, by establishing solid mission and policy and appointing a competent police chief, should be able to rely on that chief to implement policy and run the day to day operations of the department. If the Mayor is required to or feels the need to make too many decisions within the department, he is either micro-managing the department or has chosen the wrong police chief. All major decisions made by the police chief must, however, be reviewed by the Mayor. This check and balance by the Mayor is required so that repeat examples of poor judgment and performance are recognized. In this case, a Mayor exercising statutory authority and intervening would be appropriate.

A current example of a Mayors failure to do just that is the situation we currently face with Sgt. Harder and Lt. Johnsen. The Mayor has taken the position that he, as superintendent of the police department, has no idea what is happening with the Harder hearing, he and the chief only speak once or twice a month and he has does not interfere with the decisions his police chief makes. The testimony that has resulted from the Harder hearing clearly suggests that consistent application of established departmental policy has not taken place and expenses in excess of $200,000.00 have now been incurred in an effort to enforce the policy on this one individual. The Mayor should have intervened once this became apparent. As a matter of fact, I believe it was incumbent upon him, based on his statutory responsibilities as Mayor, to do just that.

In the case of Lt. Johnsen, the Mayor first exercises his statutory authority to intervene. He then does an about face and claims to not be persuasive enough to convince the chief to "stomach" his decision after his decision has already been made and implemented. He is now allowing the chief to embark on yet another taxpayer funded mistake that he, the Mayor, obviously did not believe to be the appropriate course of action since he put Lt. Johnsen back to work after three months on paid administrative leave. This is where Truman's "The buck stops here" principle of "no one can decide for you, you must decide" becomes applicable to The Mayor.

All services provided and action taken by departmental employees should be based on well established policy known to them. Policy, within a quasi-military organization such as a municipal police department, is what establishes and controls employee patterns of behavior. In an organization the size of our police department, discipline and command integrity are of the utmost importance. The policies set by the Mayor and implemented by the police chief must consistently flow down through the organization in order for its employees to know what is expected of them. Without this foundation being set by the Mayor, employees will set their own standards of behavior and codes of conduct and this is where problems will, and have, occurred.

Forest Park has policies in place that require the use of seat belts by police officers on patrol, prohibit smoking in patrol cars, and, of course, the use of excessive force and abuse of those in police custody. When established policies are not enforced, a breakdown in behavior, code of conduct and command integrity becomes inevitable. In example; several police officers see another officer slap a hand-cuffed prisoner. The incident is reported and nothing is done about it. The police officers then begin to determine their own code of conduct rather than follow established policy because if serious offenses such as prisoner abuse are not enforced, then certainly not wearing a seat belt and smoking in a squad car, perceived as less serious policy violations, are to be disregarded as well. This is where a Mayor must then step in as a leader and exercise his statutory authority as supervisor of the operation.

In tying this all together and understanding the importance of a solid policy, one must know that most of the time it is 1st line supervisors (patrol lieutenants and sergeants) and not administrators running the daily operations of the Forest Park police department. The Mayor is not a full-time employee and the position of both Mayor and police chief, though theoretically on call 24/7, does not, in practice, exist before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. weekdays and not at all on weekends. You cannot have those employed by the police department acting in the capacity of free-lancer, otherwise, arbitrary and capricious decisions are made outside of established policy and therefore, discriminatory. It is the Mayors most important role in police matters to ensure that solid policy is established and implemented so this does not happen.