What is the sudden hurry? This is kind of unreasonable and bordering on irresponsible. The hiring process will take longer than that if they start today!Think about it, just advertising and getting in resumes will take a month. Then screening, 1st and 2nd interviews, reference checks, community input, deliberation – 90 days? Plus they plan to do the In the middle of a pandemic? And, they plan for public input is through the Local Voices Network – which will take some time. AND only 2 groups have signed up to give public input? Yeah, unreasonable and borderline irresponsible, and disrespectful to the public input process.
July 8, 2020
Madison Police & Fire Commission
c/o Attorney Jenna Rousseau
205 Doty Street, Suite 201
Green Bay, WI 54301
Dear Commissioners:
Thank you for recently releasing a public consultation process for public input into the hiring of Madison’s new police chief. I appreciate the difficulty the pandemic poses as you seek public consultation and I appreciate that you are pursuing multiple methods of community input.
However, I remain concerned that it has been 10 months since Chief Koval retired. Particularly in this transformative historic time, our community needs a permanent, community-vetted police chief to take us into a new era of public safety design and implementation.
City staff from multiple departments, including administrative support and IT, remain at your disposal to help facilitate remote meetings, conduct public engagement, assist with the consultant contract, and conduct the search. In short, you should have all the resources you need to conduct a robust and transparent process in short order.
I ask that you plan to have a decision on the next chief within 90 days so this community can move forward. I hope at your next meeting on Monday July 13th you will release a calendar and list of resources needed to accomplish this goal.
Thank you for your service in this difficult time. Please don’t hesitate to call on me, my staff, or anyone in City government for assistance in this critically important work.
Sincerely,
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway
Cc: Jenna Rousseau, PFC Attorney
Madison Common Council
I, too, would like a new chief to work with on the Public Safety Review Committee as long range planning and other items are on hold until we get a new police chief, but lets be reasonable here. I do agree with the mayor, a public timeline and plan would be good tho.
