Escondido Hires Carlsbad’s Police Chief

Carlsbad Police Chief Vince Jimno was named Escondido’s new police chief Wednesday, setting into motion yet another search in North County for a new top police administrator.

Jimno, chief of the Carlsbad Police Department for seven years, starts his Escondido job June 29, said Escondido City Manager Vern Hazen, who made the appointment.

Jimno said he made the transfer from one North County city to another because of the challenge in heading a department having to keep pace with Escondido’s growth.

“I’ve completed all the goals I had in Carlsbad. Escondido gives me new life, a new place to try out some new ideas. I’m a great visionary and I like to look down the road 10 years.”

Recruited for Job

Jimno, 44, was specifically recruited for the job, which attracted 80 applicants. The field was whittled to four finalists, including Dean Shelton, chief of police for South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and Woodie Williams, police chief of Porterville, Calif. Hazen declined to identify the fourth finalist or to say whether he was from San Diego County.

The new chief will be paid $69,000 a year to head the 144-employee department, which includes 94 sworn police officers. In Carlsbad--which has 86 police department employees, including 62 sworn police officers--Jimno was paid $64,700 annually.

Jimno, the husband of Del Mar City Manager Kay Jimno, succeeds Jim Connole, who retired after nine years as Escondido’s police chief to take a job with a private company located, coincidentally, in Carlsbad.

Carlsbad City Manager Frank Aleshire said he would appoint an interim police chief within days and begin a national search for a permanent successor. He joked that the consultant who aided Escondido in its search was in Carlsbad City Hall at that moment “and maybe I’ll grab him before he gets out of here and ask him if we can use the same (personnel) files. Maybe we can work a deal.”

Improved Morale

Carlsbad officials credited Jimno with improving morale and giving a sense of direction to Carlsbad’s police department, which was traumatized when its previous chief was arrested for drunk driving.

Also, Carlsbad recently finished construction of a new, $6 million state-of-the-art police department headquarters in which Jimno played a key role.

Jimno said he enjoys developing and implementing police technology, given his background in industrial engineering, and said he will look for ways to modernize the Escondido department.

He said he would also look carefully at Escondido’s police training programs to see if they can be further improved. “I’m really impressed by the training program they’ve put together here, and I’d love to get my hands on it and play with it to see if I can make it even better,” he said. “As an outsider, you come in with a fresh perspective.”

Overriding Challenge

The overriding challenge in Escondido, Jimno said, is to make sure the city’s police force can cope with the city’s expected growth.

“Escondido’s really on a high roll. It’s a place to be for people who like to do things. There’s lots of future here and I want to be a part of it,” he said.

Aleshire said Jimno was leaving “at a peak” in Carlsbad, given the completion of the new police station. “Everything was going really well for him and he was asked to apply for the Escondido job. He wasn’t out looking for it. But he wants to broaden his experience and have another success story in a department where his experience will be useful.”

Before serving as chief of Carlsbad, Jimno was chief of police in Pinole, near San Francisco, for three years. Before that appointment, he worked up the ranks of the Walnut Creek Police Department, also in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he left as a lieutenant.

Jimno was president of the San Diego County Police Chiefs and Sheriffs’ Assn. in 1985-86.