Long Beach Police Chief Anthony Batts will leave the Long Beach Police Department – after 27 years as an officer and seven as Chief – to head the Oakland Police Department, the Press-Telegram reports today. The position in Oakland has been vacant for more than five months, and the announcement comes less than 24 hours after Batts was questioned for about an hour by the Long Beach City Council on possible staffing cuts to the department and what effect they might have on public safety.
lbpost.com columnist John Greet today wonders whether cuts to the Police Department will drastically effect their ability to serve the City. In a June interview with the lbpost.com, Chief Batts said of the budget: “There’s a little shaking going on right now because not everyone is clear what’s going to happen with the state budget, we’re not clear what’s going to happen to the county budget, which means we’re not clear what’s going to happen to municipalities. But I think all of it’s going to work out. This is not the end of the world. It’s not the last time the state’s ever going to have budget concerns – or the city… We still provide services and the city still moves on, so we’ll be ok. We’ll all be ok.”
Batts will take office in his new position this September.
City Manager Pat West indicated in a phone interview today that he will speak with Batts and three Deputy Chiefs tomorrow. The LBPD’s three Depiuty Chiefs are J.J. Craig, William Blair and Robert Luna. According to West, today’s announcement was unexpected – even by Batts, who was in a dentist’s office for much of the day and only recently spoke with West over the phone.
“He made a huge difference in this community and we’re sorry to see him go,” West said of Batts. “We consider Tony to be America’s top cop.”
West said the process of conducting a nationwide search for Batts’ replacement will begin soon, and said that Oakland’s search – which lasted five months – is around the standard time it takes for a search of this kind. An acting chief will be appointed to fill the void between Batts and his successor, but West said it is far too early to speculate who that acting chief may be, though it will likely be someone who is not interested in the long-term position.
“This is a huge position,” West said. “We want to make sure we have every opportunity to consider all the factors.”
From today’s Press-Telegram report:
Batts’ name had surfaced recently as a top candidate for the job, but Dellums’ office and City Administrator Dan Lindheim kept mum about which candidates were in the running until today.
Batts hold a doctorate in public administration. For the past seven years, he led a police department in a city rife with similarities with Oakland. Both are major port cities. Oakland has a population of 404,155, according to Census estimates for 2008; Long Beach’s population was 463,789.
We’ll have more on this story shortly, but for now, check out our June interview with Chief Batts. He told us in that interview:
Our job and responsibility is to try to adapt and respond as quickly as we possibly can and use the resources in the most efficient way that we can. No matter what comes out of that, we’ve still got to get the job done. And I think that I have a very creative command staff – some of the brightest people that I get a chance to work with. We come up with outstanding ideas and concepts, we will continue to look at automation to be force multipliers for us. And continue to try to keep this city being a safe place where I live and have raised my family.
Where does the LBPD go from here? The search for a new Police Chief will likely begin soon, but in Oakland’s case the search took more than five months and it could be a long wait for Long Beach as well. There may be some within the ranks that could be promoted up, or the City Manager could elect to hire from outside the department.
Did the allure of a new challenge draw Batts to Oakland? Or did budget troubles in Long Beach push him away? We’ll have more as we learn it.