Top Assistant in Ventura to Head Simi’s Police Force : Law enforcement: Randy G. Adams, 44, will take over Sept. 5 and plans to look the department over ‘from top to bottom.’

Touting him as a “true leader,” Simi Valley City Manager Mike Sedell named Ventura Assistant Police Chief Randy G. Adams on Tuesday to be Simi Valley’s new chief of police.

Adams, 44, will take the $92,500-a-year post Sept. 5 to fill the vacancy left open in March when Chief Willard R. (Bill) Schlieter resigned amid accusations that he was a weak commander.

Adams says he will take about 10 days off to visit friends in Montana and North Carolina before joining the Simi department next month. Then he plans to settle in Simi Valley by mid-September, he said.

The new chief said he will do “a lot of listening at first” and look over the Simi Valley department “from top to bottom.”

Then, Adams said, “they’re going to see that I have no problem making decisions.”

Adams holds two master’s degrees and the presidency of the California Police Chiefs’ Assn.

By all accounts, he is a cop’s cop.

He listens carefully to his officers, gives orders strongly and clearly, and sometimes even goes through field drills with his own SWAT team, Ventura Cpl. David Williams said.

“He wouldn’t ask of his subordinates anything he wouldn’t ask of himself,” said Williams, president of the Ventura Police Officers Assn.

That, Sedell said, makes Adams the kind of leader the department needs right now.

Adams takes the helm of a department that has been badly shaken--physically and spiritually--in the past 18 months:

* The 1994 Northridge earthquake left the Simi Valley department’s Cochran Street headquarters a shambles for months.

* Acrimony festered in the department’s top command before Schlieter’s departure as the chief and his top lieutenants flung accusations that each side tried to undermine the other.

* A three-year Simi Valley patrolman was arrested last month on charges that he was involved in a pyramid scheme.

* And Friday, the department lost its first officer in the line of duty when Michael Frederick Clark was shot to death while trying to calm a suicidal man.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity, but I’m saddened and my heart goes out to the department . . . at this trying time, with the loss of Officer Clark,” Adams said.

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“I think Randy’s got leadership skills that are unparalleled by most police managers,” Sedell said. “I think he has an opportunity to take a very, very talented group of men and women in the Simi Valley Police Department and lead them through the next several years in a very positive way.”

The burly 6-foot, 5-inch Adams was born in Los Angeles, the son of an electrical parts wholesaler and a housewife. An avid skier and jogger, he is separated from his wife, with whom he has three children age 14 to 19.

Adams joined the Ventura force in 1972 and worked his way up through a variety of postings and commands.

Patrol, burglary detectives, homicide, field sergeant, watch commander, acting captain--all led down a high-pressure path to his appointment in 1990 as assistant chief.

Adams remembered his first significant bust: the arrest of a wee-hours prowler who was sneaking into Ventura bedrooms and fondling women.

And he remembered the first tragedy--when an 8-year-old boy drowned after his arm was sucked into the pump intake of a Jacuzzi.

Despite the danger and human suffering that police officers face daily, he said, he never considered quitting.

“Law enforcement has a tendency to get into your blood, and part of my identity is as a law enforcement officer,” Adams said. “I will probably, even when I retire, view myself as part of the law enforcement fraternity . . . and probably always will have a little bit of cop in me.”

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Adams’ appointment scored well with the Simi Valley Police Officers Assn., which was allowed to sit in on interviews and oral examinations of the chief candidates.

“He gave an excellent oral,” union President Blair Summey said. “He answered the questions in a very thorough manner. He seemed to have a grasp of what was expected of a chief of police.”

Summey said he was disappointed to see Adams’ chief competition--a former department insider--drop out of the running. Former Simi Valley Lt. Richard TerBorch, now chief of police in Arroyo Grande, withdrew last month from consideration for the chief’s job.

Insiders, Summey said, “know how the organization is organized and how it runs. And they know the relationship between the department and the [City] Council.

“But after six months to a year, I think a new chief who is qualified should be able to grasp that,” Summey said. “That’s part of the problem Schlieter ran into. He was not able to grasp the--quote--politics of leadership.”

Schlieter, 53, was the product of a city-run, nationwide search.

Then-City Manager Lin Koester drafted the three-time small-town police chief away from the 45-officer Urbana, Ill., department with high hopes for Schlieter’s reputation as a visionary and consensus-builder.

But barely 100 days into his tenure, Schlieter’s officers were wondering aloud when he would take the reins and give the department some direction.

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By the time Schlieter resigned in March--saying he wished to move on to other career pursuits--his command staff was openly criticizing him for being too much of an administrator and not enough of a commander.

By contrast, his temporary successor has guided the department with a firm hand.

Acting Simi Valley Police Chief Richard Wright is expected to return to his post as captain overseeing administration, special enforcement and detectives after Adams takes charge.

By all accounts, Wright, a former internal affairs officer for the Los Angeles Police Department, ran a tight, quiet ship during his five-month stint as acting chief.

The only blip in Wright’s tenure was a quarrel with the police union in April over enforcement of a previously much-ignored policy that forbids officers to accept free or discount food and drink.

Wright’s edict that the policy would be strictly enforced followed reports that officers were violating the rule--and that at least one graveyard-shift beat cop was found to be playing cards at a local convenience store while on duty.

While Wright is seen as a stern, by-the-book commander, Adams is perceived by his officers in Ventura as a tough, ethical, workaholic boss with an open door.

“He’s a person that will listen when you have things to say,” said Ventura Sgt. Carl Handy, head of the department’s anti-gang unit.

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“He has an open-door policy--that’s for any of the officers that want to have the opportunity to come and visit him,” said Handy, who was hired on the Ventura force the same year as Adams.

“I think it’s important that you maintain that availability with your officers. Being at the helm, it’s very difficult to keep your hands on the grass-roots issues” without officers’ input, he said.

However, some complain that Adams can be authoritarian.

Upon taking charge of the Ventura department’s operations division five years ago, he ordered every officer on the force to turn out for a full-dress uniform inspection.

But that, Ventura police union President David Williams said, was typical of Adams’ straightforward command style.

“He’s a very task-oriented individual, and he can be very demanding at times,” Williams said. “I’ve seen a few lieutenants walk out of his office scratching their heads and [saying], ‘Wow.’ But at the same time, I’ve heard those lieutenants say he’s one of the finest commanders they’ve ever worked for.”