Vote of No Confidence Rocks Chief in Placentia

Police Chief Manuel Ortega, bruised and bowed by a vote of no confidence from his officers, conceded Wednesday that he may have neglected his department to pursue outside projects, and confirmed that he is considering retirement.

Ortega, 53, said that while his roles in statewide professional groups and local charities have gained prominence for his small department, the outside commitments also have soured the morale of his rank and file officers.

“My young officers maybe don’t see the benefits of these roles I have when they’re out on the late shift or working holidays,” said Ortega, who is Orange County’s only Latino police chief. “They think I’m off in Sacramento rubbing elbows with bigwigs. And I think that’s understandable.”

Thirty-one of 33 officers and detectives who took part in a police association ballot voted no confidence in Ortega’s leadership, sources said. There were two votes of confidence and one abstention.

Investigator Gary Sprague, president of the association, declined to discuss the vote or the chief’s situation.

“At present, it is our position that we do not want to address association issues in public,” Sprague said.

Ortega said the message of the vote was quite clear.

“This came from the bottom up,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘You neglected us for a while now, you didn’t care about us enough.’ That’s what they’re saying. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Ortega was named in April as chairman of the Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training, the statewide organization that sets guidelines for police academies and training programs. Ortega is also active in the state Republican Party and involved in charities such as United Way, Salvation Army and Seraphim of Orange County.

Ortega spoke out Wednesday from his home, where he is spending a 30-day leave of absence.

He said his spirits were buoyed by a second vote by the department’s managers--including captains and lieutenants--which endorsed his command.

But the chief said the no-confidence vote by rank and file officers was “like a kick in the gut, out of the blue.” He said he has found it hard to eat or sleep since the news and is unsure of his next move.

“Retirement is an alternative, an attractive alternative,” said Ortega, who became a police officer in 1967. His career has included stints in Orange, where he was a patrol officer in the El Modena neighborhood. He later served as chief in the city of Bell before taking over as top cop in Placentia six years ago.

The mood at the Placentia Police Department has been somber in recent days, said Capt. Daryll Thomann, the acting chief during Ortega’s absence. Thomann usually heads the department’s investigations bureau and civilian employees.

“It’s not a good time here,” Thomann said Wednesday. He declined further comment, saying he didn’t want to fuel the divisiveness within the ranks.

City employees said Mayor John O. Tynes was out of town Wednesday and could not be reached for comment. Other members of the City Council did not return phone calls, nor did City Administrator Robert D’Amato.

The rocky times at the department are in stark contrast to the honeymoon days when Ortega first took over the small department in 1990. Ortega’s willingness to reach out to the public made him especially popular in this city where one-fourth of the residents are Latino.

Community leaders and residents praised the Long Beach native for his attention to youth and community programs and his support of community policing, a law enforcement approach that stresses public partnerships and communication to bring about long-term solutions to crime.

Ortega has also been cited over the years, both as chief and as a member of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, as a valuable Latino voice in the law enforcement community. Only the second Latino chief in Orange County history, the son of Mexican immigrants said he felt compelled to bring his cultural viewpoints to statewide forums and groups.

“You have to do a juggling act, though, as a police chief,” he said. “You have to balance things. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to the internal part of my department. If that’s a character flaw, so be it. You try to do your best for everybody, but some people get knocked aside.”

Ortega said it pains him to think that many among the 50 sworn officers in his department would see themselves as the people that got knocked aside.

“They’re like my children,” he said. “I feel like I have an additional 50 children. When they hurt, I hurt. When their wives give birth, the child is like my own. This [vote] is something that no chief expects. And it hurts.”