SIMI VALLEY : Search Firm to Find a New Police Chief

Simi Valley will hire a professional search firm to find a new police chief who will replace outgoing Chief Willard R. Schlieter, Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell said Thursday.

City Manager Lin Koester’s decision to use a corporate headhunter came less than a month after Schlieter resigned amid accusations that he was a weak commander. Schlieter’s 1994 appointment was the product of a city-run search that used nationwide want ads and personal letters mailed to 400 candidates.

Sedell said the city personnel department will seek bids for the job from professional search firms, and then recommend a company to the City Council.

“There are a number of firms that specialize in public professional recruitment and we’ll be contacting them,” Sedell said.

Once a firm is chosen, he said, “They’ll sit down with the city manager and decide the scope, the process, the advertisements . . . what the city manager is looking for and what he believes the city needs and wants.”

The chief’s job pays between $79,032 and $100,860 a year.

Until a new chief is chosen, Koester is weighing the department’s two captains--Jerry Boyce and Richard Wright--as the only candidates for the post of acting chief. Koester will make his choice by Tuesday, Sedell said.

Boyce, 52, joined Simi Valley police as a patrolman in 1971 after working as a patrolman for Oxnard for five years. He rose through the ranks and was promoted to captain in 1981. He oversees the Simi Valley department’s patrol, dispatch and traffic divisions.

Wright, 51, came to Simi Valley in 1986 after 21 years at the Los Angeles Police Department. Wright worked in the Los Angeles department’s metro division, internal affairs unit, SWAT team and other jobs. He came to the Simi Valley captain’s post after a six-year stint as a section leader in LAPD’s organized crime intelligence division.

Wright runs the Simi department’s support services division, overseeing administration, records, detectives and the special operations unit.

Both men said they will not apply for the chief’s job--Boyce because he is due to retire in two years, Wright for personal reasons.