Simi Selects Illinois Official as Police Chief : Law enforcement: Willard Schlieter of Urbana is known for positive changes. New job is a step up in responsibility.

Ending weeks of secrecy and speculation on Thursday, Simi Valley’s city manager appointed an Illinois college-town police chief to be Simi Valley’s new chief of police.

Willard R. (Bill) Schlieter, 53, is a three-time small-town chief with 23 years of police experience and a reputation for making positive changes in the departments he has run.

“I’m very excited,” Schlieter (pronounced SHLY-ter) said Thursday in a telephone interview. “Both myself and my wife are eagerly looking forward to moving out to California. . . . I’m very eager to get started.”

Chief Lindsey Paul Miller, who is due to retire today after heading Simi Valley’s Police Department for 12 years, will stay on duty for another 30 days to ease the transition with his successor.

“I’ve asked him to think about what he’d like to know about the Police Department, and I’ll supply that information to him,” said Miller, whose extended stay will earn him a consultant’s fee of $65 an hour--about what he would make on his current salary. “I’d like him to have as much information as possible.”

Now chief of the 45-officer department in Urbana, Ill. (population 36,383), Schlieter is expected to start work in Simi Valley on March 7. Urbana and neighboring Champaign are a twin-city metropolitan area of 101,000 population surrounding the University of Illinois halfway between St. Louis and Chicago, which is about 130 miles away.

Schlieter will be taking a sizable step up in pay and responsibility. Next month, he moves from the $53,000 annual salary he was earning in Urbana to $80,287 in Simi Valley, where he will command 109 officers and 45 civilians protecting a city of more than 100,000 residents.

Schlieter started police work as a rookie in the Santa Clara Police Department, where he worked for 15 years before being appointed as chief in Taft, Calif. He ran the Taft department from 1980 to 1984 and moved on to be chief in Los Alamos, N.M., where he worked from 1984 to 1988.

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Then came a three-year break in his career so he could attend to his ailing wife and a related legal case. In 1986, Schlieter’s first wife, Patricia, lapsed into a coma following a hysterectomy and never fully regained consciousness, he said. She died in 1992.

Schlieter sued the doctors and paramedics who treated her and won an undisclosed amount of money in an out-of-court settlement, he said. He also won an order from a federal court judge forcing the family’s insurance company to pay for her extended care, he said.

In 1991, Urbana appointed him as chief, and he has worked there ever since, Schlieter said.

Simi Valley City Manager Lin Koester chose Schlieter out of a field of 51 applicants and four heavily screened finalists for his consensus-building management style and a knack for technological innovations that will help the Simi Valley department continue grow, said Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell.

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“He’s someone who we know has the capability of leading this department fully into its next phase of technological development, and continuing this department’s work with the community,” Sedell said.

Schlieter has helped modernize Urbana’s Police Department, Sedell said. The chief put computer terminals in the squad cars and set up a pilot program for community policing, a popular concept now in police work that assigns officers permanently to specific neighborhoods.

The new chief is “a real people person,” said Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton, who joined Koester and Mayor Pro Tem Judy Mikels in interviewing Schlieter and three other finalists.

“I think he’s really open,” Stratton said. “He likes to talk, he likes to listen to people. . . . He likes to go in for win-win situations and work out problems. He just impressed me in having some very good skills in talking to people and dealing with them.”

Sources have hinted that Schlieter has had disagreements with some of his officers and even weathered criticism of the changes he has made in the Urbana department.

“We haven’t heard any substantive complaints, mostly some union-management squabbles, but those are a dime a dozen,” said Urbana Mayor Tod Satterthwaite. “They were minor.”

A police union official in Urbana praised Schlieter’s ability to smooth out differences between management and employees, and the Simi Valley police union president said he welcomes the change in leadership.

“We’re anxious for him to get on board so we can get him up to snuff as quickly as possible,” said Sgt. Gary Collins, president of the Simi Valley Police Officers Assn.

Collins said that the union is not upset that city officials chose an outsider over an inside candidate. Simi Valley Capt. Jerry Boyce was among the top 10 candidates interviewed for the job but he did not make it to the final four.

“I guess 50% of us were outsiders before we came here,” Collins said Thursday. “It makes us a little more flexible, because we’ve had to adapt to all different kinds of ideas. I don’t see that as a problem at all. He comes in with no preconceived ideas about us, and that’s nice. It’s a clean slate for all of us.”

Profile of Simi Valley Police Chief

Name: Willard R. (Bill) Schlieter.

Age: 53.

Current job: Police chief, Urbana, Ill., population 36,383.

Previous employment: Chief of police in Los Alamos, N.M., 1984-88; chief of police in Taft, Calif., 1980-84; police officer in Santa Clara, Calif., 1965-80.

Education: Master’s degree in criminal justice administration from San Jose State University, bachelor’s degree in law enforcement administration with a minor in psychology from San Jose State College, associate’s degree in mathematics from San Jose City College.

Marital status: Married second wife in 1992 after his first wife died after a botched surgery and a subsequent coma left her in a vegetative state for six years.

Children: Three by his first marriage. His wife has two sons, age 8 and 11.

Birthplace: Beaver Dam, Wis. Son of a career Army officer and a homemaker.

Hobbies: Fishing, hunting, portrait and nature photography.

Quote: “I don’t necessarily like to have people surrounding me that are yes people. . . . I’m convinced that you can reach the best decisions if you get a wide input.”