Azusa Police Chief Leads Field of Candidates for Pomona Post

Azusa Police Chief Lloyd Wood has emerged as the leading candidate for police chief of Pomona.

Wood, 50, president of the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Assn., met privately for an hour and a half with the Pomona City Council Monday night.

Afterward, City Administrator Julio Fuentes said he will negotiate an employment agreement with Wood for submission to the council. Wood, who is attending a state conference of police chiefs in San Jose, could not be reached for comment.

Mayor Donna Smith and Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant said the appointment of Wood is not yet assured. Bryant said Wood is three years away from achieving his maximum retirement benefits in Azusa and is seeking more security than Pomona may be able to offer.

In Azusa, Wood earns $78,828 a year. Pomona has advertised its police chief’s job at $82,932 a year.

Pomona council members have been highly critical of their Police Department’s performance and management, blaming it for a high crime rate that included a record 44 homicides last year. The council ordered the dismissal of Police Chief Richard M. Tefank in October.

Bryant has urged the firing of two other police officers because of personal disputes with them, and other council members have denounced the department’s middle management. Meanwhile, the police officers association has endorsed a campaign to recall Bryant.

Bryant said he knows little about Wood except that Fuentes has recommended him highly. Allen Maxwell, vice president of the Pomona Police Officers Assn., said Wood has a reputation as “a hard-line but fair” administrator.

Sources said that before Wood would take the police chief’s job, he would want assurances that he can run the department without political interference.

Wood would be the third high-ranking employee to move from Azusa to Pomona in recent months. Fuentes came to Pomona from Azusa in December and recently brought in Robert De Loach from Azusa as public works director. Wood applied for the Pomona police chief’s job at the urging of Fuentes.

Wood was Fuentes’ boss before he became his subordinate in Azusa: Wood served in the dual position of police chief and city administrator for three years, with Fuentes as his assistant. In 1987, Wood quit as city administrator to return to his police job full time and was succeeded as administrator by Fuentes.

Twenty-two people applied to become police chief in Pomona. A panel of three police chiefs and two city managers from other cities interviewed the eight finalists. Fuentes said the panel rated Wood first.

Wood began working as a police officer in El Monte in 1963, moved up to the rank of captain in 1973 and was appointed chief in Azusa in 1981. He is serving his second year as president of the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Assn. and is chairman of the Emergency Preparedness Commission of Los Angeles County.

Under Pomona’s charter, the city administrator hires the police chief, but in practice such appointments are cleared with the council. In theory, the council doesn’t have the power to fire a police chief, but it obtained Tefank’s dismissal last October by directing the interim city administrator to fire him.

Kelson McDaniel, who has served as interim chief since Nov. 15, applied for the permanent appointment and was among the eight finalists. McDaniel, former chief in Los Alamitos and San Clemente, said that he believes the department has made great strides in the past few months and that he would like to remain as chief.

“I haven’t given up,” he said. But if Wood or someone else is hired, “I’ll go back to selling real estate and applying for jobs (elsewhere) as chief,” he added.

In Azusa, City Administrator Fred Diaz said his city would regret losing Wood, but that the Police Department has the managerial talent to provide a strong replacement. If Wood leaves, Diaz said, “we can fill the position from within.”

Diaz said Azusa has developed “a smooth and effective” Police Department under Wood’s leadership.