New Police Chief to Focus on Low Morale : Pomona: Lloyd Wood hopes his hiring has a settling effect on the department, which hasn’t had a permanent leader for eight months.

Lloyd Wood, selected this week to head the city’s Police Department, says a top priority will be restoring the morale of officers who have been without a permanent chief for eight months.

Wood, police chief in Azusa for the last nine years, will take command of the Pomona department July 16.

The City Council, with only three members present, approved Wood’s appointment Monday, ending months of uncertainty in which council members criticized the department’s leadership and briefly raised the possibility of contracting with the Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement services.

Wood, 50, said his appointment removes the uncertainty that has contributed to morale problems in the department.

“Hopefully, the appointment will have a settling effect,” he said. His first tasks will be to meet with employees individually and to learn about the community, he said.

Wood said he will move cautiously. “You can’t make a whole lot of changes too quickly,” he said, adding that when he went to Azusa nine years ago from the El Monte Police Department, where he had been a captain, he made some changes that turned out to be mistakes, and he had to reverse himself. “You have to get a feel for the community first,” he said.

Raul Camargo, president of the Pomona Police Officers Assn., said the council’s decision to appoint Wood has already raised police morale and improved the relationship between the council and police officers.

Camargo said the council showed its concern for the department by hiring a chief who is highly regarded within the law enforcement profession, and has a reputation for honesty and fairness. He said Wood has the qualities “that will help turn the department around.”

Camargo said police morale plummeted when the council fired Police Chief Richard Tefank last October. Tefank’s departure led the police association to endorse the recall of Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant, a fierce critic of the department.

Bryant had urged the firing of two police officers with whom he had personal disputes. In addition, he and other council members criticized management tactics by the department’s captains and lieutenants. Voters ousted Bryant at a recall election June 5, and council criticism of the department has subsided.

Bryant’s removal cleared the way for the appointment of Wood, who was recommended by City Administrator Julio Fuentes.

Mayor Donna Smith and council members Tomas Ursua and Nell Soto voted to confirm Wood’s appointment. Councilman Mark A. T. Nymeyer, who has been on vacation, was absent.

In moving to Pomona from Azusa, Wood will be going from a department with 57 sworn officers to one with 172. Wood said the challenge of a larger department and a larger city persuaded him to take the job.

In Azusa, Wood did double duty as city administrator and police chief for three years. He stepped aside as administrator in 1987 to be replaced by Fuentes, who had been his assistant and who has since become Pomona’s city administrator.

Fuentes urged Wood to apply for the chief’s job in Pomona and has been advocating his appointment since February, when a panel of city managers and police chiefs from other Southern California cities recommended him over seven other finalists who were interviewed.

The appointment was delayed for months by negotiations over a long-term employment contract, which Bryant strongly opposed and other council members had questioned.

Wood dropped his demand for a contract and accepted the job at $82,932 a year, plus a car for his business and personal use, and credit for benefits he had accumulated in Azusa amounting to 14 days of sick leave, 10 days of vacation and 18 days of administrative leave.

He will accrue additional sick leave and vacation benefits on the job in Pomona.