is
really missed those didn't we yeah those
are great
all right mayor kessler i think we could
turn it over to you with the
introduction is that where we are
yeah um thank you so um just wanted to
first off thank um gail and grace from
saunders group and also robert byrd from
ralph anderson
and associates for joining us this
evening i wanted to give you guys an
update on where we are with the chief
search process
and an opportunity to ask questions of
our search professionals and as you know
and i'm just going to synopsize real
quickly gail and grace have been doing a
lot of community engagement um
we've held multiple workshops they're
going to tell you exactly who and how
they've engaged so i'm not going to
spill the beans on that
um robert has been
gearing up to do the um the search
process which is involved also speaking
with members of the community
um
helping with an internal climate uh
study within our police department and
then getting ready to take the community
survey information prepared by gail to
dovetail that into a candidate profile
that'll assist us in the search so
that's the broad overview they're going
to share with you where we are with the
timing then afterwards you'll have an
opportunity to have an interactive
conversation about not just the process
but also what you guys would like to see
as we move forward so
having said that
first
and
i am you have i think you can take the
screen share over at this point if you
wish
thank you and thank you so much uh mayor
kessler
um president of council and members of
city council thank you so much for
having us here this evening we're going
to give you a high level overview of the
work we've been doing as you know we've
been charged to reach out into the
community and
see and hear and listen
to what the citizens have to say and
residents of bexley have to say about
what they want to see in the next chief
of police
and so uh one of the things that we did
is we worked with the mayor and team to
really identify those groups that we
wanted to reach out into
and really get their information in
addition to that we uh held two
community virtual forums some of you
attended those to really get a broader
view and a broader sense of the broader
community
and as i mentioned we conducted a series
of engagement sessions to learn and to
hear from members of the community and
we'll give you a little bit more details
about that
the other thing we did as we go to our
next slide
is
i want to talk about those community
forums and hopefully you can see this is
just a snippet of some of the
information that we received we did many
of you uh participated in minty
exercises before but an engagement tool
to really get the voices of the
community so we had a series of five
questions um and uh we walked through
each of those five questions to really
get a sense of what the community
thought and people were genuinely
engaged and so they would input their
ideas their thoughts their insights in
either in their phone or online and we
showed up and they would show up here
and so
some of the things that we heard in the
community forums centered on community
relationships wanting the chief of
police
and the division of police to really
engage in community relationships
we also heard about
being more available to the public
humanizing
the police officers
as they move about into the community
and really looking at a healthy balance
of community policing
law enforcement absolutely uh
overwhelmingly people really centered on
that but also really want to get a sense
of that community policing uh to really
bring community and police together
the other thing that came up quite often
in our um exercises was really engaging
with the youth and when we talked with
some of our uh deeper dive with our
community organizations that really
aligned there as well
the other thing that bubbled up quite
often was this um
concern about addressing mental
challenges and mental issues in the
community and how the police go about
doing that and what are some things we
can do differently to address those
rather than engaging with law
enforcement in that type of engagement
and again community policing it came up
over and over again as a top-line
theme
also um
when we talked about
the community outreach
one of the things that we did in working
with the mayor we looked at and
identified the groups that we really
wanted to engage with have some dialogue
with and sit down and talk with them
and we did that over the last two
two and a half weeks so we have been
really busy and it's been
very insightful the good news is this
everyone wanted to
play a role
have a voice and be engaged so no one
turned us down and so obviously this is
very important to the community but
these are the groups
that we reached out to
who we engaged and i'm going to ask
grace to walk through this a little bit
to really um let us know about the
insights that we've had and what we
learned in those uh groups
sure thank you so much gail um good
evening everyone my name is grace hunter
on the pr uh saunders pr group
team so i'm going to re-share um sorry
about that brief interruption
so the questions that we went through
are were the same basically that we
covered uh during the public forums so
we just wanted to make sure to cover all
the bases you know make sure we are
asking the same questions getting you
know a wide swath of the community
through these uh focus groups in
addition to the public forums so i'm
going to read uh just some
overall uh overarching themes that came
with these questions so
as you see the first question was around
the challenges of the city of bexley and
more often than not of course the uptick
in crime came up quite a bit
safety and security for the synagogues
in particular
with the requirement of security
officers on site that that came up quite
often
um youth interaction was something again
that came up a lot
and the lack of trauma-informed care
when dealing with some of our youth in
the city um of course the racial climate
and the issue around
traffic stops and the disproportionate
number of minorities who are are pulled
over with traffic stops
the proximity of columbus
or bexley to columbus and whitehall
came up a bit
and also the opioid drug use and
overdose which is an issue um across the
county um so those are some of the main
challenges and issues that came up uh
the next two questions were around
opportunities so we asked about
the opportunity for the next chief to
make a difference in the community as
well as in the division of police so
with that a lot of
engagement get to know the residents
engage with youth at an early age
understand the racial diversity in the
city and and that it is becoming more
increasingly diverse um understanding
the dynamics of the different parts of
bexley the different you know south
bexley versus central versus north that
came up quite a bit
and then within the division again
mental health resources really investing
in that
making sure the officers are healthy
seeing the police officers as human
again humanizing the police
building those relationships and then
also intentional diverse recruiting so
really seeking out some diverse
candidates and making an effort to
retain them
um then we spoke so i kind of put issues
in with challenges um
as i mentioned earlier in the first
question um so some of the priorities
that residents would like to see
rise to the top for the next chief were
relationship building being visible in
the community
communication was was huge um especially
during changes so not being so quick to
make major changes but really getting
buy-in uh from the community listening
to the community finding out you know
what what the residents think before
making
major changes and then of course safety
and security it's funny uh they didn't
really say it at first because it said
it's a given safety and security so
that's definitely a priority
that residents feel the chief should
prioritize
and then always at the
not always at the end but throughout
these conversations people talked about
characteristics of the next chief so i
wanted to share that really quickly um
ability to communicate with all types of
people vibrant and welcoming
respect from both sides meaning
from it from officers and from the
administration
and then also experience within all
areas of the division so with the
respect from the division comes
knowing the job every facet of the job
so
um so those are just some of the
characteristics and qualifications that
uh came up in our focus groups
uh grace would you go back one slide i i
wanted to spend a little bit more time
there um
you know the community well obviously
but you can see that we really had a
group of young people who were very
engaged in the conversation
we had
leaders from the educational
institutions
including president of capital we had
the bexy community foundation we had
members from the clergy um bexie d e and
i bexy pride a very diverse group of
organizations that really did share uh
very authentically
uh openly and completely so
um
i just wanted to underscore um that that
we really did try very hard to bring in
uh as many voices as we could
so before we go to uh the survey
um
we want you to know that if you have any
questions
we'll take questions now on the
community engagement or if you'd like
for us to continue on with the survey we
can do that as well
we'll continue on
um
as we mentioned in addition to the
community engagement we did launch an
online survey the survey is still open
and it will close on friday
but to date we have a little over 350
surveys people have been very engaged
they've been uh willing to share uh
their thoughts and we had a series of
different questions for this survey
so i want to just give you a high level
overview of the survey and some of the
results that we're seeing there
one of the first the first question
we've asked i'm sure you've all taken
the survey is uh please select the top
five priorities that you think the next
bexley chief of police should address
and from the survey the top line results
really centered on community engagement
overwhelmingly uh uh top of the line 82
percent uh is where we are right now
property crime and reduction came in
very strong
as as something that should be
prioritized and should address
as i mentioned earlier in the community
groups we heard this and in the survey
it is holding true as well
de-escalation and mental health
challenges addressing those how to
address those in a way that may not put
as much pressure on law
enforcement community policing
that um
is also very high 68 percent
speed and traffic control uh certainly
bubbled up as well so of the top line
for that question
those are the top five that are really
bubbled up and is of a concern of this
residence
other things are expanding bike and foot
patrol and then officer recruitment
played a role in that question as well
the next question provide three words
that come to mind when you think of the
ideal city for the bexley chief police
chief
along those uh characteristics that
grace mentioned same here
integrity empathy competence being
engaged being being transparent being
open-minded being a leader being
communicative and being very diligent
being a problem solver all of those
bubbled up as being very high and on the
minds of residents
and when it comes to core values and
qualifications centered along the same
integrity transparency transparency
being a strong leader
accountability all of those things are
very high up and on the minds of
residents as being very important in the
next chief of police
and then when we talk about how many
years um
do they see
that's important for law enforcement
right now
10 plus years that's overwhelmingly
where people are leaning in on in terms
of the years of experience
and a close second is 16 or 15 plus
years
and then other comments that uh people
added
to really give their voices to it
really talking about safety of the
community the chief should really focus
on safety and crime reduction and let
that be a top of mind and then as grace
mentioned earlier
really getting a real understanding of
the various uh areas of bexley and and
really reaching out and getting to know
them is high on the minds of of the
residents as well
and then i just want the chief to be
happy to have the job and for it to show
and for it to emanate in in his or her
actions
and also to be a good resident in bexley
not only showing up as the chief but
humanizing that position in a way that
people get to know
him or her
as a resident
part of the community
and then a couple of other big uh pieces
that i will
share on
the online survey
centered around
how
residents rate their overall experience
with the city of bexley police
department beyond the chief
overwhelmingly
excellent
good
top of the line um and then of course we
have
people providing information with fair
and good but overwhelmingly excellent
and good are the um
is what people are feeling about the
division of police
and then compared to a year ago how do
they feel about bexley in terms of is it
more safe is it less safe is it the same
overwhelmingly
um about the same
so people are feeling comfortable
uh it's about the same
finally uh what would you like to see
the city of bexley and bexie police do
differently to enhance policing
it really does go back to community
policing and engaging the community
and expanding the community policing
work that you've started to do in bexley
also
this uh in addition to that a more focus
and a continued focus on speed control
bubbled up as one of that top four
um
areas
that they'd like to enhance uh as as
they think about the next cheap
and so um
overall those are the top line uh
findings from our survey
uh we wanted to wait until we close the
survey uh so that we can show you other
all of the charts and graphs and and so
you can really get a sense of how people
are responding to uh this work
on our next slide when we talk about our
next steps
i am going to turn it over to our mayor
so that he can talk about our next steps
and um
if you have any questions for us we'll
certainly be here for that as well
well i think you guys covered it pretty
well so next steps are that
you guys are completing that community
report
um that information is going to be used
to assist ralph anderson robert berg
with ralph anderson
in
creating that candidate
position profile
and starting to advertise that and
robert's going to talk about that here
in a second and then we have yet to
finalize exactly how we're going to
go through the interview process that's
something that we'll be discussing uh
here internally with robert and his crew
and then also any any finalist candidate
uh forums with the community so
um
then you have a hand up right yes
sam
thank you just a quick question uh gail
do you feel as though the community
engagement has been sufficient for you
to understand what the community desires
because when you say that we have 300 to
500 people um
it seems as though we
are at like a three to five percent
return rate from community members
actually participating so you feel as
though we should be pushing this more or
do you feel confident in what you have
so far to be able to draw
given the consistency of the top line
information that we're getting whether
when we're talking to community groups
and in the lines
similarly on the online survey
as always you want to get as many as you
can and do as much as you can
when you're doing these this type of
work um i do think that given
some of the
top-line consistency of information uh
we're getting a good understanding of
what the community wants that's we
that's why we wanted to uh extend our uh
outreach which we did
um and so
that's the best answer i have for you in
terms of is it enough
we believe that you can always get more
i do believe that what we're hearing it
really is um
aligned what we're hearing in the
community and what we're hearing on the
on the survey as well
thank you
any other questions for gail
and
depending on time at the end we'll be
able to circle back around monique
um i know obviously gail and um
grace the the focus that you've had
today has been on community engagement
but
i'm also wondering if there has been
any
input to date from officers currently in
the department or is that
kind of further down the process there's
obviously the community aspect but i do
think it's valuable to see what officers
who
have been here
uh for
for a bit or for a while uh would have
to say about what a
strong chief would look like
absolutely our role was community
engagement ralph anderson i think plays
a role in on the officer side and so um
that's
you're getting both but our role was for
community to engage the community so
that's the difference there yes thank
you i also just and that's absolutely
correct to add to that i'm also doing
ride alongs with every officer
and sergeant and dispatcher and
detective
and
such
so i will i'll also be bringing that to
the table to augment the the surveys
that we're doing internally for our
climate
to be clear i'm not riding along with
dispatchers they don't drive when
they're dispatching but uh we're
we're doing to touch bases with
everybody so lori ann
yeah i was just curious when you talked
about um
being out in the community being a part
of the community i love that obviously
but i was curious if
um there was a sense that
people wanted the chief to live
in our community
that actually did come up a couple times
um they asked if it was a requirement
for them to be a resident um and many
you know felt they didn't need to
so they but the question did come up is
it a requirement but i believe it's like
a supreme court ruling that it's they
can't require you to do that so yeah but
it did come up a couple of times right
thank you
if i'm if i may add to that
what we also heard quite a bit is
just the visibility in the community
whether they live with it or not the
visibility beyond showing up um
when you have to do your
duties as a chief but being engaged in
the community beyond that is very
critical so that visibility
uh
component plays is very important too
across the board from the young people
to the
other groups it it really came up
very consistently
i'd like to amplify that
sorry jessica
yes thanks mayor
um gail so quick question um and grace
is that typical that you do see chiefs
that live in communities i guess i just
would love that education from
uh
yes you do see
teas across the country that live in the
communities
um
that is not unusual again that's not
a mandate
but uh yes um
even our surrounding communities uh
blexi you see chiefs living in their
those communities as well so yes it
certainly is not an anomaly at all okay
and then my second question um the
community engagement piece that's come
up
throughout your research over and over
again and i'm not surprised by that
um i would love to understand what the
community sees as community engagement
like what where do they believe that
that chief should be
what are examples of that
yeah so i heard um
you know sporting events uh
of course the parades and things like
that but not just in the parade but
walking around uh during festivals um
visiting recreation centers just popping
up you know and and a lot of uh
reminiscing came about when they spoke
of the old prior chief riding his bike
around the schools um so just kind of
being there helping kids cross the
street and um just not again not always
showing up when there's a problem but
actually just being a part of regular
regular events um as a as a resident but
of course as the chief but
um just mingling in that way
and i appreciate that because my
question comes because that is how when
we moved to bexley and my son who's 13
now was uh six months old that's how we
met our chief he was on the front lawn
of um
the ohio state president's lawn with the
cheerleaders
and my little guy wanted to go up and
and hang out with brutus and that's how
i met our chief so i was just i was uh
just
you know wondering if they didn't feel
like we had that and what that means um
and i will say too something that came
up is you know there are no programs for
younger children or there is like a
small like academy you know police
awareness for for you the babies but
nothing you know for the older kids like
the teens high schoolers
so just keeping that level of education
really and
again visibility um
so that they're they're there in uniform
but they're sharing they're they're
educating the youth on what they do and
and talking to them as people um that
came up as something that they would
like to see happen
in the future
great thank you
okay
um
robert is also here and i think some of
the questions that were being asked i
think robert could also provide some
insight in he's
as you know uh has has a quite a deep
experience with recruiting
and interacting with chief with
executives within police departments um
so robert if you want to talk a little
bit about your process and then um also
i think we should all welcome you robert
is a recent
ohio resident he was not an ohio
resident when we uh selected him
so i think it's not a coincidence that
he now resides in ohio after that so
welcome
to the black eye state robert
thank you mayor thank you bexley robert
are you living in bexley i i am
20 miles outside of cincinnati
okay all right go bengals
but our home's gonna be in anderson
grandchildren so i moved from florida
from the west coast to ohio i'm out of
my mind
but gran two little granddaughters
so so mayor members of council um thank
you for for the the time to meet with
this evening i just want to start and
say gail and i don't know each other and
grace and i don't know each other
and we do those community surveys as
well you guys did a fabulous job i mean
i'm not just saying it fabulous and i
know it's fabulous because the
information that you provided aligned
with the
you know the stakeholders are always a
little different but aligned with the
officers in your department
and
what was interesting i reviewed some of
the notes the things you're saying the
officers want the same thing
and and what i love about ohio
and and you know i've done these all
over the country we've done the top 25
metros i've done your columbus twice
i've done the fire chief i've done the
director of public safety the inaugural
inspector general
so so i i i know your area to the point
have i ever been to bexley no i haven't
but but i've been to downtown columbus
but but
your
bexley
is unique
i've never recruited for a police
department this small
i did a fire department in georgia last
year with one firehouse and 30 sworn
firemen men and women
but uh
the the difference
is that i think there's an opportunity
for the next chief to be more hands-on
they have to be
they should know every officer's name
they should know their families
the mayor's riding along well guess what
the chief needs to ride along too every
shift and not just once
and
when i see a lot of these
you know
people do they're doing more public
engagement some are the good ones are
the bad ones aren't but what lentz the
mayor and you are going to
is
incredible
because you really it's authentic you
want to hear from your community you
want to hear from the police and you
want to hear from your stakeholder
groups and i honestly believe based on
my personal experience we're not just
checking a box
so what's going to make this successful
i don't want to preach to you but the
ability to work together
i even the people that have said the
worst things about the police it's not
the worst thing i've ever heard
i didn't even hear defund once
which is fantastic but i think there's a
common sense approach of folks working
together to make it better and that's
what the cops went to that's what law
enforcement wants
so having said that you know what have i
found today and i'm going to put a
powerpoint slide up real quick and kind
of just walk you through the process and
then maybe we could talk a little bit i
want to hear i'm back from you all let's
see if i can do this
did that
work no
no and i have it i have you sent that to
me i can put it up as well if that would
happen okay can you put it up i just
want to share and for some reason it's
not sharing
yeah
um
i'm going to take mine off my screen
does that look right
yeah perfect thank you
i appreciate that
i guess that's your police department
yeah
next slide
so you want to keep going
yeah keep going that's just a sales
pitch we don't need all right
that's that's our team so we actually
have a staff
and and you know it's kind of
interesting so
during covet we became very virtual
you know case in point i'm in ohio my
assistant's in iowa her husband's
working on her doctorate but you can see
that that
um we do have a team of folks dan hahn
here
just retired from city of sacramento he
just joined our team but he's a retired
police chief
and um
lamont newell
i don't well you know you could see him
up there but he was probably one of the
top fire chiefs and then was the city
manager of santa monica in california
he's retired but they have a lot of
relationships that's what the important
thing they know a lot of folks
particularly the law enforcement
nationally next slide
next slide
so
this is a a proprietary tool that we use
to not only capture information and vet
people but i use it to present people
and it's already pretty well customized
for for bexs and when you look across
the top we're always going to look at
population staff size
uh budget you know and there's there's
other important information and you'll
see 21st century policing you know is it
a buzzword do they really understand it
community policing diversity so you see
a lot of the things that gail mentioned
is already on the matrix because it's
not you those things are not unique to
the city of bexley and city of bexley
xlepd those are national
trends
i see those themes everywhere i go next
slide
oh sorry i don't do powerpoint there we
go ah man i thank you i appreciate you
doing great so so strategies for
recruitment that that's what i'm i'm
hired on to do i'm
the the
i haven't written the profile
because i wanted to hear the community
engagement piece
i've spoken to quite a few of the
officers certainly the interim uh chief
is a captain five of the six sergeants
uh everybody on the list that that mayor
tesla provided i've already spoke to i
think you have seven activist groups
when i use the word group it could be
one person
so seven activists themes within a 2.5
mile radius
but
nobody
no even even the most
the lesser than positive comments
weren't terrible
what what what i would say
is you have an incredible police
department i can't tell you how much you
enjoy talking to those officers
they're smart and i talk from four years
on the force up to 33 years in the
course and what that means four years
had your last chief 33 years has had
three chiefs
but when you listen to them these are
smart people
is morale down probably it's down
nationally we're seeing unprecedented
attrition you lose one that's a lot you
only have 30 of them
sworn
but we're seeing it down nationally
everybody wants diversity now we want
departments that are represented
representative of their community and
diversity but it based on what's going
on society it's very hard to hire police
where i would talk to the union
presidents and they'd say i want my kids
to do it i want their grandkids to do it
guess what they're saying now
we don't want you to go into policing
so we're this is an interesting time in
our country
but but that's the reality but everybody
wants diversity
and and the you know if they're serious
about it you can create strategies to
attract diverse candidates
but overall the
your department's incredible
um i think this is going to be a
phenomenal opportunity for someone
this compensation strategy
you know we always look is there a
contract do they offer severance
you know this this will be a national
recruitment but we start regionally
we're going to start right in your
backyard and expand across the
southeastern united states and then
across the country the bad news is
depending where they come from they're
going to want assistance to reload and
guess what moving costs are way up
you know postcode incredible and i know
because i just moved a little bit of
stuff very very expensive
um interview costs you pay for them if
we bring people in not a big deal
contracts are at will what that means is
they serve it the pleasure
even if it's a five year count there's
no guarantee
they serve it the pleasure traditionally
we talked about relocation vacation next
slide
so this is where
we're going to place ads and they're
diverse ads
national association women law
enforcement hispanic international
association of chiefs national
organization that's called noble black
law enforcement executive ohio
association of chiefs but you don't find
people by ads you do if we get lucky
once we design our outreach strategy i
am personally calling people up well
everybody i know and i know them all
saying
bexley is an excellent opportunity now
here's the challenge
traditionally
and i see this all the time in police
and fire they grow up in one
organization
they spent their entire career they're
usually about 50 years old when they can
retire
and then they go into another
organization for example this could be
in a captain
because of your size you know it's
usually captain assistant chief and
deputy chief it depends where you are in
the country
um a chief
depending on the size of the department
but
if they're coming from a larger complex
law enforcement and they want to come to
bexley what i'm looking for is can they
be hands-on because it's not like you
can delegate to this huge command staff
they have to be willing to roll up their
sleeves
lead from the front and that's why i
said know everybody's name go out on the
ships get out in the community
you know one thing is when i meet with
stakeholder groups there's a lot of
upset people i'm not saying in bexley
but they're sometimes
very very upset people with the police
and i say are you part of the solution
or you're going to be part of the
problem but if you can get people
together in a coalition or task force
even the ones that are unhappy and keep
talking about it but you can't do it
once it has to be sustainable and
ongoing
and then god forbid something happens
you have people working together it's
not going to be trying to pull the
community together so every one of the
police talked about they want to chief
that's going to be out in the community
every single one of them they they they
want to rebuild trust they understand
the importance of visibility you know if
you said you have good equipment i
haven't completed the survey yet 18 out
of it's either 30 or 36 i know there's
30 swarms
18 as if like a couple days ago
completed the survey i haven't looked at
the results and we're going to do what
what gail's going to do we compile it
you'll get graphic analysis but it's
important
to hear what they say
next week i will begin building the
profile and and the mayor's going to
have that in less than two weeks it's
already going to graphic design you know
we're going to make it look like a
million bucks but make believe it's bait
on a hook that's all it is
what we're going to do is take all that
information and put it to life
in a vetting process
because you have my promise i will not
bring anyone men or women if i don't
believe they're all going to be
qualified
the good one they have to have the style
and energy and passion
to
do what you need in your unique
committee a community
it has to be about bexley it has to be
the fifth
next slide please
we're in the stakeholder phase called
phase one
next week i'll begin developing the
recruitment profile
and then we'll begin the aggressive
personal outreach
and then we're evaluating the mayor is
going to get an update every week we
call it
it you know the next slide will probably
be a timeline but it we call it the
quiet period because quality people
there's going to be people looking
people that can retire but quality
people we're looking for quality people
that aren't lucky
if that makes sense
so they're going to do their homework
when they call me and say how what about
this
the good ones are interviewing you all
too
you know if they can they're going to
come visit when i play staccron ohio he
flew from bellevue washington with his
wife and some of his sons and spent a
week
in akron because he wanted to make sure
it was a good fit for his family that's
kind of the gold standard i'm not going
to say everybody does it but we want
them to do their due diligence and my
job is to explain the challenge i don't
i don't say this is great let's all hold
hands i tell them where the challenges
are if they don't want to do it
that's okay we're looking for people
that not only understand the challenge
have a proven and verifiable track word
to help you folks address those
challenges
next slide
this is this is kind of downstream but
council interviews community town hall
background verification final selection
we'll talk about that again when we're
presenting candidates
but it's a framework of a strategy it's
a good strategy next slide
all right the timeline this is going to
take
i'm going to say around 75 days if
everything stays on track
um some of these folks will have
contracts
that say they can't leave for 60 days or
whatever
you know we we capture that information
we're going to share that information i
don't think we should be or are in a
hurry
we're not going to sacrifice quality or
doing the right thing for expediency and
and that's what that's what the mayor
wants and i think that's what you all
want we're going to do this right
and i'm going to bring you quality
options and if i can't we keep going we
don't settle it's just too vital
for you and your community that makes
sense
but you're paying me for my expertise
and judgment
and
you know honestly i think i think if
somebody asked any of those cops that i
spoke to any of those police
i it's not like they trust me they don't
know me but i bet you i began a
relationship
and i've already talked to the the union
because i need them to help complete
those surveys we want to hear every one
of those officers voices
of what they think it's important but
i'll tell you right now nobody brought
up training nobody brought up equipment
you got camera body cameras you got car
cams you get you guys are pretty state
of the art i don't know what your
internal technology is
but what we're looking for now in this
recruitment is leadership
someone that's going to lead by example
you need somebody with really strong
communication skills they have to be
courageous
we
we need someone that's going to support
their officers they they you mess up
your fess up they do their job
you support them we all should support
them they break the rules
then you hold them
accountable next slide
thank you
so so
i know i was talking fast i i apologize
for fire hosing you
i feel very passionate about this
recruitment
i feel so passionate i'm taking it
personal
because
you know it's kind of fun in a way and
refreshing
um the way the interaction that i've had
today i i can't tell you how much i
enjoyed talking to those police officers
every single one of them
i was just i just impressed
do you all have questions for me how can
i answer your questions or did i miss
anything there oh
thank you robert you covered it well um
the first hand raise is jen robinson
uh hello again and first of all grace i
want to apologize for not welcoming you
welcoming you in the beginning i saw you
right there next to gail and it
completely
slipped my mind so welcome belatedly but
welcome thank you thank you
absolutely and i have to say i'm i'm
after hearing both of of you guys speak
i'm so impressed with how
holy the community has been engaged by
this and and the officers as well i was
very pleased robert to hear that you've
started those conversations and that
you're getting such uh you have such
strong feelings and getting great
feedback from them as well because as we
all know on council and i think many
community members do as well it's a team
this is a team effort you know it's not
just the police are over here in the
communities over here
and we do keep hearing that echoed uh
over and over again the communication
the relationship the idea of community
policing is so so important so two
things struck me um as i was listening
to you um both speak today
um and i wonder um and robert this might
be directed more toward you but um grace
you might have some insight as well
the challenges that a smaller community
like bexley face because we do have an
expectation that we are going to get a
chief who is all of the things that we
want them to be
um but we are a small community and
sometimes people who are looking for
that kind of upward movement
um are looking for something that's a
little meatier so to speak you know just
like a larger staff or you know more do
you foresee that um as a challenge and
kind of what are the obstacles in in
ensuring that we we find somebody who um
you know is all the things that we need
but is also being fulfilled
professionally so that's question number
one
do you want me to take that do you want
to grab that one grace
yeah so
i
i talk to a lot of people i mean a lot
of law enforcement in in this case this
is not going to be for everyone
it's almost i mean if you're coming it's
like when i place the former police
chief of miami-dade which is the eighth
largest in the country and he's now the
vp of public safety and ocean reef and i
don't know if you heard ocean reef it's
one of a kind in with the largo a lot of
billionaires and zillionaires and i and
his name's juan perez and i said one
you've gone through machine gun battles
in the street
gun uh bridge collapse the worst things
you've seen in society for 30 years and
as long as you've been the chief on your
worst day somebody's going to illegally
feed a cat you just laugh
you know
you know but it's true it's it's like
such a difference you folks have never
had an officer involved shooting
every one of these i've done you're the
first one i've ever had never never had
one thank god i think somebody shot
fires or something
doesn't mean it won't happen it can't
you know because it's a very transient
people driving through that
that main street someone can rob a bank
in columbus and it ends the the it ends
with your law enforcement engaged in
bexley
i'm not i'm not hoping for that believe
me but this is not for everyone and
that's what we talk about what you need
what the challenges are
i'm gonna commute it'll be in the
profile it's gonna be when they call me
or people that i call when i reach out
to chuck
ramsey who's the former dc and
um philadelphia
um and now he does like a training and
mentoring for
law enforcement nationals i mean leaders
nationally and and you know chuck chuck
wexler's perf
you know so it's talking to these people
say hey i got a great opportunity
talking about that opportunity but to
your point jen it won't be for everybody
there's going to be people that don't
um they they not that it's a lesser
challenge believe me there's plenty of
challenge
but it it's not it's not going to be for
everybody but it will be for some
i think it's a great job but
it has to be something
they want to do and you and also someone
asked about residency you know
philosophically everyone wants to live
in the community where they work i'm
talking about chief city managers
sometimes they can't afford it it could
be schools there's a lot of reasons you
don't have a residency requirement
but it shouldn't make a difference
you can live somewhere else but they
need to be part of the fabric of your
community and they really need to know
your community because again you know
everybody says community unique they are
every culture is different and even a
chief say they came in from philadelphia
or wherever
and they and they tell the the officers
this is how we did it in philly they
don't want to hear that
they need to come in and listen
learn and lead in bexley you've got to
understand what's important to those
officers investing in the bexley
community not somewhere else
so but uh but you know
i'm the filter i'm the buffer for you
and one one thing i wanted jen i know
you had a follow-up question but one
thing i wanted to highlight
just to make sure that it wasn't
misunderstood um
you know we brought saunders group in to
do a really exhaustive community uh
survey and discussion in that report
robert has been speaking with police
officers but robert you've also spoken
with
um
representatives from
from uh the civil service commission
this oh yeah listen review board the
vaccine minority parents alliance prayer
the jewish community our superintendent
and heads of schools so robert has also
been having i wanted him to make have
those first-person conversations as well
so that there's human context to go
along with the survey work that uh
saunders group was doing as well so i
didn't want to shortchange the process
that robert had done and make sure that
you guys also understood it's he's been
doing a 360 examination as well
and and the cool thing mayor is there's
a lot of a lot it's not a hundred
percent i mean there there there's one
particular group that's pretty upset i
don't know the answer to that but you
know it's going to take time but there's
a lot of alignment that's what i enjoyed
uh um with gail and grace's presentation
because i'm listening to what they're
reporting and i'm hearing the same thing
which is good
that we have alignment and and that's
what we want when we're recruiting
because we're we're looking we're you
know we're looking for certain values
certain style
if you will
but thank you for for saying that sir
and my follow-up really isn't um
necessarily a question it's more a
comment and i i know robert when we were
going through the interview process with
sam and troy and the mayor and myself
um we talked a lot about
bexley's uniqueness and we've talked
about how smaller community is clearly
we have a number of groups who are
engaged um in in what's happening in our
city um but one of the things that i
think is important to just always keep
in the forefront is because we are so
small and you mentioned like something
that happens in columbus can
end up
stopping here in bexley and there is
whether it's that people drive through
our community or things start in one
place and end in another community often
times when police are policing in bexley
they're not policing bexley residents
necessarily and i think to understand
that relationship uh you know
geographically where we are and how
small we are in the communities around
us that we understand that going into
this process when we communicate with
whomever that that next chief is that
they understand that they're not just
policing in bexley that there is there's
a much broader reach to policing and
that it's really important
that we may look a certain way and we
you know may demographically you know
show up on paper a certain way but that
doesn't mean that we're not policing a
different population and that doesn't
look like you know our statistics look
like and and i think that's really
important that we just make sure that
that next chief is aware that because we
are so small and because of how we are
situated
that um you know there's a much broader
reach in terms of of who we are policing
on a day-to-day basis and that's really
important that's that equity piece
that's that you know that that
even-handedness that's that you know
that's where the training comes in and
all of that but i just it whether that's
a question or not that anybody wants to
respond to i just felt it was important
as a council member that um that that
said um so that we understand that
that's something that's important um you
know as we're looking for that next
chief
so thank you thank you both for your
time and for being here tonight
thank you thank you and by the way i
agree with every word you said yeah i
think you're spot on
thank you
jess is next up and i don't have to call
people out i'm just sitting here looking
at hands so
anytime anyone wants to take over the
meeting feel free yeah
all right thank you
thanks robert um just a quick question
for you
the survey that um gail and grace did is
transparent to me as a resident i was
able to get on and and participate in
that so my uh curiosity comes into can
you help me understand
what the interview or survey looks like
for our bexley police officers when you
interact with them
yeah they they i i that's something that
could be shared with you
i mean you're you're an open records
there's nothing secret about it
it it it's basically there's three parts
one
is what are the officers well there's
some demographics do you live within the
city limit so we're going to see if they
all complete it you'll see exactly where
they live
they live how long have they been with
the force so there's basic you know
survey type of information there's a
morale question
you know morale's foundational it goes
to motivation attitude are they happy
unhappy so we're gonna hear from them
we're asking like check the box on
different competencies leadership
communication people skills experience
so they get to check it's very quick and
the other goes to priorities
just uh as as um you did in the
community survey what do they believe
the top priorities are for the
department then there's a section they
can write whatever they want that's one
of my favorite parts so we'll give
graphic analysis on the check the box
but i read every comment in this case
we're talking 30 if they complete it
but i look for themes is it whining is
it complaining or is there a theme in
what they're saying and what they need
i found a theme in every one of those
stakeholder meetings with law
enforcement they were all saying the
same thing
so you know you know somebody said well
is that is that you know having 350
responses to statistically
representative
and gail said you know of course we want
more
right now you have over 50 percent
typically we'll get 20 to 25 percent on
those those law enforcements out of
large you know if you have 1400 sworn
1600s morning
and the reason they don't fill them out
they're afraid of retribution
which there isn't it's a hundred percent
anonymous
we try to get maximum but i've done so
many of these that's you know at a 13
000 you know that might not be a bad
number of course we want 100 you're not
going to get it for whatever reason
but um
i hope i answered your question but but
if the mayor wants to provide that
survey or you know we can get it to you
well we'll i'll circulate and jess we
made sure that
it's not like the police have a whole
set of different questions it's it's
it's just from a perspective of you work
for the city as opposed to
being a resident so very similar
questions being asked we really actually
wanted to see
you know what was what was the
difference between some of these it
would be insightful i think and i expect
that we're gonna
receive more i mean we just i think put
that out last week maybe and i think
yeah that's not it hasn't been on the
street acting chief sent out an email
yesterday to
rattle the cage uh
you know it's interesting that the
police want to be treated with respect
and dignity it's a very dangerous job
i'm retired navy and it was a yacht club
i'm medical
like a hospital administrator i think i
was in a yacht club i'm not sure i was
in the real military but i was and i
retired and i'm a full commander they
want to be respected and guess what the
citizens want to be respected as well i
don't know the answer
but
they've got a dangerous job folks
dangerous job
no i appreciate the education on that
process thank you yes ma'am
thanks jess i think troy is next
thanks robert you uh answered my main
question which is that i am really i
think like most of us probably
uh really looking forward to
the feedback from the police officers
because this is their daily life they've
had a previous uh police chief they
obviously have their
uh you know their needs their their
hopes for for a new police chief and i
guess you know my concern was do they
have a forum where they are going to
feel safe and comfortable
and anonymous for them where they can
give us their candid thoughts because i
think those will probably be uh super
helpful and you had mentioned you're
working your way through in your own
personal interviews i'm just curious
about how far like how many officers
you've gotten through there and what is
the timetable for us to receive that
report because i'm definitely
anticipating that
yeah i i think it's it's um we just need
to get them to complete it and i know
the mayor is working on it um i can make
another phone call a couple phone calls
and see how we're doing maybe call the
the captain the interim chief call the
union guy back
i
i don't know how many i talked to i mean
i could count them up but i talked to
five of the six captains
and then it was like a representation
of patrol officers a detective i mean
these are educated people they're short
and and
i think they were
comfortable
in talking to me i i'd like to be a fly
on the windshield of one of those police
cars i don't know what they're telling
the mayor but but it's not
not professional i can't tell you you
know when when you're listening to
people and and they're speaking they had
there was a lot of credibility to what
they were saying
so i i just listened to i had given
robert just to be clear i'd give him the
all the sergeants contact and the
acting chief and also just kind of a
cross-section of experiences
so four or five officer names that
no significance other than they
represented a variety of uh of lengths
of time in the department and um
uh thought it would be helpful for him
just to hear from different perspectives
from that
thanks i think that's especially
valuable maybe uh maybe they get a free
chipotle thing when they turn their
their uh
i really think we're gonna be okay i
think we're gonna we
are gonna get really we are getting
fantastic feedback so it's good
i guess i might just hop in here next
troy if you don't have any more
questions
thank you troy
robert i had two questions um the first
is regarding this profile that you're
gonna
generate based on
the input that um that's been gathered
so far
one of the things that gail and grace
touched upon based on community input
was
the community wants more physical
engagement with
the next chief and given that
for our officers their police car is
their office and they're in their office
working
and they're
maybe not physically able to be you know
outside the car
maybe normally
how does
how does the profile
seek the best candidate who can
creatively come up with ways to
physically engage the community given
that unusual workspace
yeah i mean it's
they all have cars some have one some
have two in the car um what you're
describing again is a national
expectation
and i've seen departments where they
weren't allowed to get out of the car
you've seen on tv where where the
officer gets out and shoots basket hoops
with the kids or
you know they're they're helping teach
them read they're
you know i thought it was interesting
the chief riding his bike by the school
or being out at an event on a lawn
but we need more of that
and what i look for it's not just the
the recruiting i mean we can capture
that in a sentence
but what i'm looking for is people that
everybody tells you what you want to
hear i'm looking for people that
actually have done it
that they believe in it and do it if
that makes sense
but
i think the officers want it as well
where sometimes they can't do it is
they're understaffed
and they're so busy
just responding to things i i don't
think that's the case not that you're
not busy but that that's going to be
important for for the
and it's a here's another maybe this is
not a good analogy but when you talk
about customer service just think
customer service i'm really good at it
i'm great
but my staff suck do i get an a or a
fail
you i fail you want to create a culture
of
community
policing
if the officers believe in it and they
understand it and want to do it then you
can sustain it
and i and i think personally that's what
the gold standard
and and there's 30 of them but it's a
leader that's going to come in and talk
about some of these challenges and
what's going on in bexley and say how do
we you know and help lead and come up
with some strategies
and ways to connect better
and there's no reason why we can't meet
with community leaders and others
there's no reason
it just saying
well i'm kind of to follow up on that
last point um and my kind of leads into
my second question was um for your
profile based on the feedback so far
um you know having a courageous leader
who uh you know understands bexley but
is also not afraid to shake things up
and make changes where things need to be
changed whether it's policies maybe it's
staffing maybe it's
the way the the department has
previously done things
in your profile do you seek out specific
examples of a proven record on that or
do you seek out folks who have
the mentality of being
open-minded and creative enough to want
to all move forward together
so so
the to put that to life so it's both is
in the vetting process so that tool that
i design when i'm asking questions
and we also can capture those kind of
things in a writing assignment but the
courage to lead
servant leadership they're not just
words
but you're looking you when you talk to
people um you know
police and fire are paramilitary
organizations you can you can have a
very authoritative top-down approach
and maybe if you're you're in a gun
battle or some you know horrific event
but
i think there's an opportunity to
communicate and build
team
in in your department but that that's
going to take leadership and you have to
build trust
and relationship with those officers and
how do you build trust whether it's
community internal you keep your
promises
and that's just my opinion but but
i am going to vet for that it will be
the the requirement or or the ideal
candidate discussion or whatever that's
in the the job description the fancy job
i call it a world-class profile
but but to actually see do they have a
proven and verifiable track record and
reputation is in the vetting process
and also another fail safe is the
background when we do a background
investigation
yeah i'll give you a quick example and
this is televised
so robert clark is the new director of
public safety of city columbus so he's
fbi
this guy was over
all the gangs in la 88 cities so he was
fbi liaisoning with 88 cities
in the largest county in the united
states and when i did his background he
didn't tell me this
people that knew him said he used to go
to church in the worst gang
neighborhoods why
one he wanted to be seen number two he
wanted to get the vibe he wanted to get
a sense in church what was going on that
bad news
i just thought that was i mean you know
it's one thing if somebody says it to
you or you hear it from others i like
when i hear it from others
but it touched my heart but that showed
me that guy's courageous and guess what
fbi isn't community policing that's not
their their thing
municipal government law enforcement's
community policing so i'm not i don't
want to be a sales pitch for clark but
your point is very very important
and not only do i understand it i
believe in it i'm going to do it
great thank you so much i see that
councilmember klingler has
joined us welcome matt
thanks sorry i'm late
i'll get caught up i know it's being
recorded
loving your ashes matthew
where i was
laurie anne
you know i just i
my question and slash concern i guess is
um piggy bats a little bit
on what monique was saying this idea of
being courageous is really important to
me but you know as a as a former
educator um
i really am looking for someone who is a
forever learner
and i want to see evidence
uh that the individual is going above
the standard continuing education
and would value this throughout the
department um i guess i want to know
that this person's going to foster a
healthy attitude to towards evolving the
department when growth is needed not
just
not just be able to come in and notice
oh i gotta change things you know
but
you know some people are right for the
community
in one time period but guess what the
community changes the community grows
and the community sometimes needs a
person to pivot
along with it and
so i guess
i i i'm hearing how you're finding these
courageous people and i'm sure that you
know that is how something like
a forever learner will also bubble up to
the surface when you're looking for them
but i guess i would like to really
emphasize the need for
our whoever
to be able to change as we change
and i i just think our
world around us is demanding
um
a new way of thinking about
who we are as
as as america as ohioans as bexleyites
and i and i want
i want somebody who's
not so stubborn in who they
have to be that they can't be that
amazing person we need them to be as we
change i hope that made sense made a lot
of sense
to me makes i think it makes tremendous
sense
well finding or her
her would be really awesome
her would be awesome
you're right you're right
i mean look at us we we like to brag
don't we ladies look at us
majority female counsel
my my firm placed the first
african-american female
in the history of dallas
you renee hall from detroit pd she was
there three years
they weren't kind to her
i'll be honest with you and right now in
columbus we have the first
african-american female elaine bryant
but what's more even more interesting
that it's important they never hired
outside in over 200 years
think about that she's the first
outsider in the 200 years you've had
three now
is my understanding
i think it's three
at least two
at least two yeah keep being honest
mayor
jen robinson i'm gonna jump into just
real quick because i know we said we
would keep this to as close to an hour
as we could and i'd so appreciate the
comments that everybody has made and i
just want to
not a question just to kind of piggyback
off of what both monique and laurie anne
said is and i think all of us on council
feel this way and i think people in the
community likely do as well i think all
of us see this as
such an incredible opportunity for our
city i think
many of us even you know even those who
kind of struggle and you know have this
relationship with police that sometimes
feels adversarial we all feel like this
is a moment where
we really as a community can step up and
do some really really great things and
i'm so great grateful as a council
member and as a community member that
we've engaged with two groups who
understand that and who can help us kind
of steer this ship so that the next
woman or man who comes in to take this
position
is someone who
uh not only embraces our community for
what it is but to laurie ann's point and
a very very important point is a
lifelong learner and understands what
this next gen we all talk about like the
new generation of policing but really
understands what that means and i think
that means being flexible that means
being brave that means being courageous
and encouraging and a leader and all of
those things that we've talked about so
i just personally uh want to thank you
guys for making time to be here today
and to have this conversation with us i
think it it's really important and i
hope that council feels like it was time
well spent and has a better idea of what
this process is and what those next
steps are
so thank you all for being here tonight
thank you and thank you again i just
want to echo that robert grace gayle who
whose son had a basketball tournament
tonight
uh it's very exciting
um obviously you know we're gonna
we're in this for the long haul we're
taking our time as we talked about
tonight we're doing our due diligence
and um our
robert's made commitments here i i've
made commitments to our community in
terms of continuing to keep them and you
guys in the process so um
as we go through that process we'll have
plenty more opportunities i think to
talk about it and
brainstorm over what we're doing and i
think the next thing for us is as we
start to get this
profile out as we start to get some
applicants in um
and in the coming weeks robert and i
will be honing
exactly what that interview process and
community engagement process looks like
um
you know it'll be a month or two out but
just starting to to plan for that and
prepare for that so
plenty more conversation to be had in
the coming weeks and months
where
i think we're uh we're in public i think
that takes us to
public comment unless you
is technically what's on the jenna and
we do the webinar is on our website on
the events but do not have any attendees
on the on the webinar
so
jen do you want to get us out of this
meeting
um sure do i just exit stage left
you don't actually you're going to need
to call for a motion i think oh wow that
that's that's a lot of power you've
given me
[Laughter]
thank you thank you remember
i'm really excited
thank you is there a motion to adjourn
this um what's turning into a sideshow a
motion to adjourn motion to adjourn uh
seconded
all
right thank you
we don't have to do a roll call
thank you everyone bye-bye thank you for
having us
great
so much thanks everybody