Pomona Police Chief Axed, Adding to Office Vacancies

In Pomona, where the city administrator was fired in May, the city attorney and public works director have quit and there are half a dozen other key vacancies, the City Council on Tuesday fired the police chief.

Charging that the Pomona Police Department has become lazy and ineffective, the council voted to ax Chief Richard M. Tefank, who has been with the police force for 18 years and has served as chief for three.

The City Charter says the council cannot fire any department head without the recommendation of the city administrator. So, council members ordered Fire Chief Tom Fee, who is acting city administrator, to recommend that Tefank be fired.

After meeting for half an hour in a private session that began shortly after 7 a.m., the council voted 4 to 1 to approve Fee’s recommendation. Tefank left the council chamber after the vote and refused to comment.

Fee said he will appoint an acting police chief soon.

Mayor Donna Smith, who strongly denounced the dismissal, said Tefank could have saved his job if he had acceded to demands from council members that he fire seven officers at the management level. “I salute your integrity, mainly because you did not go through your department with an ax when pushed by the council,” she told Tefank.

Smith predicted that there will be a “mass exodus” of police officers because of the chief’s firing. With heavy sarcasm, the mayor, who has been feuding with the council majority, added: “I’d like to say congratulations to the council. Another life, family and career have been ruined. And I feel that the council has certainly succeeded in flushing whatever is left of employee morale right down the toilet.”

But council members said that they fired Tefank because police morale was already poor.

Although Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant did not confirm that there were seven management-level police officials that council members wanted removed, he did acknowledge that he felt that “several members of the Police Department should be encouraged to serve in a different capacity.”

Bryant said mid-rank police officers have exerted so much authority over patrol officers that many have avoided taking any action on their own for fear of making a mistake and being disciplined. He said one patrol officer said he spends most of his shift in his police car reading a magazine, working only when he is dispatched on calls.

Councilman Mark Nymeyer said he has talked to 22 current and former police officers at the sergeant level or below who urged him to reform the Police Department. He said most of the complaints were directed against the department’s middle management.

“The message I would like to send to the Police Department is that the middle management that has ruled the roost and enslaved the chief needs to be changed,” Nymeyer said.

Councilwoman Nell Soto noted that the city has already had 39 murders this year, more than in any previous year, and said she gets complaints two or three times a week about the police inefficiency.

“I don’t know where the fault lies,” she said, “but I think you should always start at the top.”