Rohnert Park could spend $5 million to upgrade public safety operations

Rohnert Park might spend up to $5 million to make an outside consultant’s recommended improvements to the city’s embattled unified police and fire department operations.

The Center for Public Safety Management, which conducted a comprehensive independent review of the city’s public safety department, suggested more than 70 ways to bolster internal efficiencies and spread department responsibilities.

For the past few years, the city has battled a revolving door of public safety officers who are required to be trained in firefighting and police duties. Also, they work mandatory overtime fire shifts. Rohnert Park is one of only two California cities with officers handling both public safety roles.

Jeff Weaver, the former Sebastopol police chief hired last month as the interim director of public safety, does not intend to lead the department beyond February. He took over from Rohnert Park Director of Public Safety Brian Masterson, who retired amid controversy over the department’s highway drug seizure program. Also, there were persistent questions about Masterson’s leadership. A recruiting firm already is screening director applicants and expects to hire someone by January.

The Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm said the department should expect ongoing struggles with officer recruitment and retention.

“There is no doubt that is going to be your challenge; it’s going to continue to be your challenge,” Tom Wieczorek, lead consultant for the ?$110,000 study, told the City Council last week. “This is not something that’s just unique to Rohnert Park. But it’s going to be a multi-year issue to deal with, and that doesn’t take into account that you’ll also have some people leaving.”

To better attract public safety officers, the consultant ?recommended the city consider recruitment incentives, such as providing a housing stipend to help offset the increased cost of living in the region. Pursuing dual-trained officers from other parts of the country, including Michigan which has a similar public safety operation, was another suggestion.

Hiring two more nonsworn community services officers for a total of four and using that as an entry point for eventual promotion to sworn positions also was proposed. And employing part-time firefighters to staff the city’s two firehouses to temporarily reduce the amount of overtime was recommended.

Most of the consultant’s recommendations would add to the public safety department’s operating costs, but the city already is reviewing and prioritizing the implementation of many of them, said Darrin Jenkins, the city manager. That would include expanding middle-management supervisor positions, traditionally lieutenant roles in a police department.

“Some of these are easy to do and some of them are harder, but definitely the main focus in this coming year is getting that lieutenant level of positions in there,” Jenkins said. “So that’s a big focus, expanding our ranks on supervision and managing the folks in the field.”

Creating more supervisor positions in the dispatch center to reduce the number of direct reports to one manager is another target. Limiting those shifts to 12 hours and upgrading technology in officers’ vehicles so they can reduce their requests of dispatchers are other ideas the city is considering.

One planned tactic to retain qualified officers, rather than allowing them to be picked off with higher salaries or attractive jobs elsewhere in the state or country, is reintroducing more specialty positions. Weaver said the first request of the City Council will be restoring the K-9 program for one officer. The intent is to eventually add roles such as school safety officers and community oriented police officers.

“We figured let’s grab that quick and easy win as we look at longer-term, broader, more challenging things,” Weaver said. “It provides different slots that help make it an attractive place to come and an attractive place to stay.”

Citing low rates of crime and fire incidents, higher levels than state and national averages for solved investigations, the consultant called the structure of Rohnert Park’s dual police-fire operation “highly suitable for the city.” Of the 16 structure fires during the yearlong period of review, financial losses from those fires were low, with only one incident exceeding $20,000. That validates the department’s code and building enforcement and proficiency fighting fires, city officials said.

“That’s what makes this the perfect, ideal situation to have a public safety department,” said Mayor Pam Stafford, adding the consultant’s study never was intended to consider dumping the city’s public safety structure. “It just justifies that we have it and that it does work.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or at kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.