Editorial, 06/13/2007 - No-confidence vote? Try our city leaders

Today’s election day, if you’re part of the police force: The Santa Fe Police Officers’ Association is holding a vote of no confidence in Chief Eric Johnson.

The decision to take such a vote was a close one, 12-10. But how many of the 110 association members among 140 or so officers on board support the chief, and how many want Mayor David Coss to have him fired? Are there 44 others out there who think the department’s problems can be solved only by booting Johnson?

Those aren’t the only questions our officers should have on their minds as they drop in on union headquarters today. They should be wondering who would replace the chief if he draws a thumb’s-down majority and the mayor were to bend to the union’s will. Would the next chief be any better? Or is Chief Johnson just wearing those three stars on his collar at a bad time — when too-low officer salaries are taking their toll on the force?

There’s no question that the department is in the dumps: The burglary rate has doubled during the past year; dopers are desperate for fixes, and what could be easier than broad-daylight breaking into homes of working couples and taking whatever they can carry? But they’d better not brag about it by cell phone to their buddies while they’re driving away: We’ve got a law against doing that, by darn.

What we’ve also got is a police force out of focus — symbolized by strong evidence that a couple of our dope-squad detectives were themselves dopers: Detective Cheech and Sgt. Chong reporting in, sir ...

Maybe everyone else packing a badge is squeaky clean — and those who are are properly embarrassed by their fellow citizens’ image of the department. Why, officers and civilians alike are asking, did it take the FBI to nab those two?

Responsibility for our police image lies in Johnson’s lap — but it would help to have a mayor and city manager making clear what their, and the City Council’s, public-safety priorities are. We’re not seeing that from Coss — nor is anyone on the council filling a nine-year leadership vacuum at City Hall on any front.

Asenath Kepler, fired far too soon as city manager — whether or not she should have been hired in the first place — noted on these pages last month that the mayor and council ought to hold, or have held, a public hearing on our police and public safety. Sure, it’d be a lot of tumult and shouting — but from it, at least a few grains of good information are bound to emerge. And maybe Chief Johnson, or Mayor Coss, or the council, or new city manager Galen Buller, or somebody, would get an inkling of what the priorities should be.

A hearing like that would be more productive than a gripe-venting vote like today’s.

The city and the union have negotiated a series of salary agreements raising officers’ pay by 12 percent in the next couple of years. That’s a start — and city councilors say today’s vote, whichever way it goes, won’t spoil that deal. Higher pay should attract a decent level of recruits to fill 20 or so vacancies on the force; once they’re on the streets, perhaps Santa Feans will feel better about their chances against being robbed, raped or otherwise violated.

A proper police force for our city should field about 200 officers. That puts us 60 or so short. Yet our municipal leaders continue to duck that uncomfortable notion, spending our tax money on this frippery or that.

If anyone ought to be facing a vote of no confidence, it’s the council and the mayor — and there are recall provisions in the city charter. The longer they put off a heart-to-heart community meeting on the most basic of public services, the sooner someone’s going to challenge their taking up space in City Hall.