Fountain Valley Hires a Chief of Police : Veteran San Gabriel Captain to Be Sworn In to Post Aug. 18

After nearly a year without a police chief, Fountain Valley has hired Capt. Elvin G. Miali, a 21-year veteran of the San Gabriel Police Department, for the post.

Miali, who is in charge of patrol and operations and is second in command in San Gabriel, will become the third police chief in Fountain Valley’s history when is sworn in Aug. 18. He succeeds Marv Fortin, who retired.

“I’d gone as far as I could go in San Gabriel,” Miali said Wednesday, “and my chief is not going to retire for another eight or 10 years. . . . So it was a great career move for me. I have a lot of ideas, and Fountain Valley is a great city with no major problems.”

Fountain Valley and San Gabriel, with their suburban characters and well organized Neighborhood Watch programs, are not very different. Residential burglaries are the biggest crime problem plaguing both communities, Miali said.

Among his plans for Fountain Valley’s force, serving 55,000 people, Miali said, are to establish a Business Watch program patterned after the neighborhood organizations, and a youth and services division for the Police Department. That unit would be launched with a supervisor and two officers, who would visit schools to educate youths about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse.

“Going to the schools allows juveniles to get to know officers more on a one-on-one basis,” said Miali, 40. “They get a chance to talk to officers other than at a party they’re closing.”

As an interim step to keep juveniles “out of the court system when they are borderline in trouble,” Miali said, he wants to start an “in-house counseling diversion program.”

Miali, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in police science from the California State University system, started his law enforcement career in San Gabriel in 1967 at age 21. For the next 19 years, Miali said, he worked through the ranks at the San Gabriel police department: patrol officer, detective, detective sergeant, lieutenant in charge of investigations and finally, five years ago, captain.

“My forte was homicide,” Miali said.

Miali said he co-founded San Gabriel’s police officer association in the first three years of his law enforcement career and remembers the organization fighting at the beginning for respect and recognition. That experience, he said, has made him sympathetic toward the Fountain Valley police union, which just recently agreed to a new contract after threatened job actions.

“I know that they picketed City Hall, and I had heard they were planning some job actions, but I was glad to hear that they rejected the advice of their (legal) counsel and didn’t. . . . I believe having a dialogue with the police association won’t answer all the questions and problems, but I do plan to be involved with them.”

Miali, the married father of two children, said he plans to move from San Gabriel soon.

“I believe a police chief should live in the community, preferably the same city, he works in,” Miali said.

In San Gabriel, he earned $45,500. In Fountain Valley, he will earn a salary of $55,000 and oversee a Police Department budget of $5 million, city officials said.