The Honolulu Police Commission has one primary responsibility by law: hiring and firing the police chief.
It borders on dereliction the way the commission has outsourced to a $145,000 mainland consultant most of the selection of a permanent chief to replace long-departed Susan Ballard — and taken a painfully long time in the process.
Ballard announced her retirement more than a year ago after receiving a poor performance evaluation from the commission. The reported 19 candidates to replace her, 12 from within the department and seven external, had their resumes in by the application deadline last July.
But the commission dithered for six months on finding a consultant to screen the candidates before finally hiring PSI Services LLC.
All while a demoralized department struggled with the pandemic, severe manpower shortages and multiple controversial police shootings under interim Chief Rade Vanic, who ultimately dropped his candidacy for permanent chief.
PSI Services said last week it has winnowed the list of candidates to eight. The commission won’t become involved, and the public won’t learn anything specific, until PSI picks four finalists next month. The commission hopes to name a chief in June.
The convoluted process and the long delay in moving the department forward is ludicrous, leading the police union among others to question why a commission made up mostly of accomplished professionals needs such extended hand-holding from a consultant.
Maui County last year picked a new police chief in six months. Los Angeles replaced its outgoing chief in five months and San Francisco in seven months.
Honolulu commissioners are following essentially the same process and taking the same time as the search that produced Ballard, who despite all the consultant’s screening was secretive and thin-skinned, often at odds with the commission and her own command, and couldn’t complete her term.
If there’s a constant with Hawaii’s public institutions, it’s that they seldom learn from their mistakes.
A big problem with the Ballard selection process was that it was done behind closed doors, as opposed to the Maui chief selection in which the finalists were questioned for hours on a live webstream.
Honolulu commission chair Shannon Alivado has said the panel would like more public participation this time, but so far there’s been little other than a community survey by the consultant involving 618 respondents.
Neither the public nor apparently the commissioners will know if there may have been a superstar cop who was poor at essay writing among the 14 who didn’t make the final four.
Looming over it all is Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who said he hopes to have a “big say” in the selection even though the City Charter gives him no say other than appointing the commissioners, who are supposed to act independently and free of politics.
This is no way to inspire public confidence in filling one of our city’s most vital jobs at a critical juncture for HPD following the corrupt regime of Louis Kealoha and the bizarre flameout of Ballard.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
