Seal Beach’s Police Force Tries Again to Be ‘Family’

The voice over the public address system at the Seal Beach Police Department beckoned: “Come to Code 7 room at 15:30 for someone’s birthday.”

With three uniformed officers on the shift, and a smattering of detectives, it wasn’t hard to figure out whose birthday it was.

Capt. Ken Garrett, heading for a slice of birthday cake, was hopeful on this day: “Does this look like a staff with a morale problem?” Maybe, said an officer behind him, the fence would get mended after all. “It’s looking like maybe we can become a family again.”

For the first time in weeks, perhaps months, jokes and wisecracks resurfaced late last week among Seal Beach officers after the upheaval of the police chief’s departure.

“I’m excited,” said one officer. “I’m looking forward to rebuilding the department. People are a little more relaxed around here now.”

Seal Beach Police Chief Stacy Picascia’s abrupt departure on medical leave June 4 and his anticipated disability retirement three months from now have brought to light serious problems in the tiny department--whose employees have been working as much as 100 hours overtime each month to cover the shifts.

The 43-year-old Picascia’s departure--prompted by hypertension diagnosed as potentially deadly--has also left traumatized a police force that was on the verge of burnout with, as Picascia put it, “no light at the end of the tunnel.”

In a department as small as Seal Beach’s, where three officers and a few supervisors make up a standard shift, problems become magnified, officers said.

With a small-town police force of just 39 sworn officers, everyone has to do their part or it hurts, Lt. David Van Holt said.

“In a smaller department, you are like a family,” Holt said. “We know each other, and we know when each other is bothered. And that spreads sometimes through a department.”

In a town where the grapevine still flourishes and weekly newspapers carry complaints about police in the letters to the editor, some have said it shouldn’t have been difficult for an eight-year chief to catch wind of trouble among his troops.

Picascia’s announcement that his dangerously high blood pressure was forcing him to take leave until September came on the same day his officers were to have completed an 11-question survey judging his policies and administration.

The survey followed by just days an overwhelming vote on no confidence by officers in the San Clemente Police Department, which forced the resignation of Chief Kelson McDaniel.

And though Detective Mike Vasquez, president of the Seal Beach Police Assn., said the officer poll was by no means a no-confidence ballot, other officers said Picascia nevertheless would not have passed such a test.

‘Victim of Circumstances’

“Morale was too low, and some of the problems were not Stacy’s fault anyway,” said Sgt. Ken Mollohan, 42, who started his police career in Seal Beach 20 years ago.

“I think he was a victim of circumstance, a victim of budget cuts by (former City Manager Allen) Parker. I think he was a victim of recruitment problems that all of law enforcement is having, and a victim of the economics of the city.

“I’m a watch commander, and we all as supervisors have to carry some of the burden for the problems. It’s never just one person. But I think if there had been a no-confidence vote, the majority would have been against Picascia . . . and he wouldn’t have listened to any criticism unless it was a direct threat to him.”

Picascia, an attorney and current president of the Orange County Chiefs of Police and Sheriff’s Assn., was described by various officers as “intelligent,” “ambitious,” “egotistical,” “vindictive” and “out of touch” with some staffers.

Picascia has admitted that communication had lapsed between management and the troops. He had said he was trying to address the situation with both the survey and special workshops.

“I was feeling like there was no light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “And the officers were feeling burned out, too.”

‘Own Brand of Upheaval’

Huddling and protective last week like a family stung by loss, many of the department’s 54 employees declined to talk about the chief or their work conditions.

“The interim reorganizing itself causes its own brand of upheaval, and we don’t want to jeopardize where we are going,” Garrett said.

The survey “was going to be painful enough to try and go through. We’re now trying to get the guys settled down again.”

Other officers spoke guardedly, in some instances only on condition they not be named, citing fear of reprisal if Picascia were to return from medical leave or one of his deputies were to succeed him. Capt. William Stearns has been named acting chief.

Those who would talk about the department described attrition and injuries that have left the force periodically exhausted. The pressures that caused, they said, was not all Picascia’s fault.

In Seal Beach, which has the second-lowest crime rate in the county, next to La Palma, three officers are on duty at any hour of the day. Before he left for Half Moon Bay in October, 1985, former City Manager Parker cut back the number of sworn officers from 44 to 39.

Rule of Thumb

The general rule of thumb among law enforcement, Parker said last week, is to staff 1 to 1.5 officers for every 1,000 people. That would mean Seal Beach needs just 27-30 officers, he said, with some additional officers for the April-September tourist season.

“It’s primarily a bedroom community; it doesn’t have a large commercial base. They have one retail shopping center,” Parker said.

But Picascia disagreed, saying the department needs those 44 officers to maintain safety and provide a backup when someone is ill or injured. The department, which is supposed to have six dispatchers, is down to two. Therefore, officers are working 10-hour patrol shifts four days a week and then putting in four hours as fill-in dispatchers, City Manager Robert Nelson said.

Nelson, who came to Seal Beach in May, 1986, from an even smaller small town--Del Mar in San Diego County--has brought in a consultant and will try to identify trouble spots and then address them.

“There are some organizational problems, there are small personal problems at the officers’ and sergeants’ levels,” Nelson said. “Change in itself is usually good. So we’ll try and get all the traumas out.”

Recruiting Rules Changes

Nelson said adding one new police officer is under consideration, as are changes in recruiting rules, such as the requirement that officers be able to swim.

Assistant City Manager Daniel Joseph pointed out the positive: No one has taken a leave of absence because of exhaustion.

Picascia, meanwhile, said he frets over the accusations, denies most of them and resigns himself to saying the other criticisms are groundless, but pointless to refute.

Like any supervisor, Picascia was criticized for personality traits and conflicts. Some officers said they were ordered to undergo psychiatric examinations for what was merely exhaustion or simple melancholy that would pass--sometimes because they had criticized the chief. Two of them have sued the chief over such allegations.

One officer who had made those allegations won his job back Thursday after a two-year legal battle.

Picascia said the allegations in that lawsuit have personally wounded him and contributed to his high blood pressure.

Try to Relax

“It hurts me to hear some of these things, but it hurts me to see officers working under the stress they were under, and the burden that put on their families and personal lives,” he said.

For now, Picascia said, he will try to relax as he considers possibly applying for a judgeship or return to private law.

As for the police department, former City Manager Parker said: “There’s not a lot the city can do. The city doesn’t have a lot of bucks to hire new people. It’s a small department without a lot of room for promotion. If you want to deal with stress, you learn to live with it or you go somewhere else.

“It was the same situation when Stacy got there. it will be the same for someone else. It’s just Seal Beach.”