Escondido Chief’s Leave OKd If He Runs for Sheriff

Escondido Police Chief Vince Jimno, posturing as a likely opponent in county Sheriff John Duffy’s reelection next year, won permission of his City Council Wednesday to take a year’s leave of absence--if he wants--to campaign for the job.

Jimno has not yet announced his candidacy but said his leave (without pay) as Escondido’s police chief would give him “greater flexibility” to campaign for office without raising any specter of conflict of interest. If Jimno announces his candidacy but loses the election, he would return to his chief’s job.

Though his leave would be without pay--Jimno would remain on the City Hall payroll as a consultant and receive the hourly equivalent of his $82,000 annual salary, or about $40 an hour.

During his leave, a captain in the Escondido force would be named interim acting police chief and would run the daily operations of the department, said Jimno and Escondido City Manager Doug Clark.

But Jimno, who would be physically reassigned to work in Clark’s City Hall office, would be available for assistance on police matters, Clark said.

“The law allows him to run for office and still stay police chief,” Clark said. “And he could have done it that way, but there might be questions about why he took a lunch from 11 to 2. This way, he’ll essentially punch a time clock and we’ll only pay him for the hours he works, and no more.

Three Consulting Projects

“We’re asking that he works a minimum of 30 hours a week.”

Clark said Jimno would be assigned three projects as a consultant: developing a new strategy on dealing with drugs and crime in the city; working to improve minority relations in the community and studying the space needs for a new police and fire department headquarters and whether the two public safety agencies can work under the same roof.

Clark noted that, when Jimno was police chief of Carlsbad, he helped design that city’s joint police-fire headquarters and, because he has a degree in industrial engineering, he can apply those lessons to Escondido.

In a sense, Jimno’s consulting work would almost pay for itself, Clark said. The city previously had planned to spend $90,000 with a private engineering firm to study the police-fire headquarters and, with Jimno’s consulting work, has cut down the cost of the engineering study to $59,000, Clark said.

Jimno said he would still represent the city as police chief at professional meetings and said that, if he announces his candidacy, he assumes he could still use the title of Escondido police chief on his ballot designation.

“Because of my interest in possibly running for sheriff, this (job) configuration is very comfortable for everyone to live with,” he said.

The consulting contract will take effect “after such time as he may announce his candidacy for sheriff,” according to the council’s resolution, which was adopted without discussion by the City Council.

The only announced opponent to Duffy is former San Diego police chief Ray Hoobler.

Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache has said he is interested in the post, but is waiting for Duffy to waive a department policy that restricts underlings from running against an incumbent sheriff.