Grand Jury Urges End to Police Rift

The discord between city police officers and their chief has drawn the attention of the Ventura County Grand Jury, which on Friday urged the City Council to settle the dispute.

The police officers’ union informed the council this week that 92% of its members had no confidence in their boss, Chief Walt Adair. The union also blasted the chief for allegedly endangering officers.

Adair, a 30-year department veteran who has directed it since 1987, has said the vote simply stemmed from a labor dispute.

But in an interim report issued Friday, the grand jury said there is “near-unanimity among police officers that more effective leadership is needed to bring the department up to date and regain the confidence of the police officers.”

While the report did not conclude that Adair should resign, it did recommend that a process be put in place for selecting his replacement. Some of the grand jury’s observations were similar to those in a police union report given to council members earlier.

Adair, 54, did not return phone calls Friday.

Other city officials were tight-lipped.

Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa said she hoped the council could hold an emergency meeting before its next scheduled meeting Dec. 1.

“I think it needs to be addressed, but I would like to refrain from answering any specific questions about it until the council has had a chance to meet and discuss it,” Espinosa said.

On Monday, the council heard from union officials, who complained their concerns about Adair had been ignored. But council members and interim City Manager Murray Warden said the officers’ complaints lacked specifics.

In response, the union gave the council a seven-page report with detailed examples of Adair’s alleged poor performance. The report also criticized Warden and the council itself.

The reports from both the union and the grand jury point out that Santa Paula, with the county’s second smallest police department, has the same number of officers it did in 1984. Compounding low morale, its officers are the lowest-paid in the county.

The reports also were critical of Adair for disbanding the department’s gang unit and its narcotics team.

“There are four major gangs in the city, yet there are no task forces dedicated to gang and drug related problems,” the grand jury report said.

The grand jury interviewed Adair and current and former City Council members, as well as Port Hueneme Police Chief John Hopkins, and Ventura County Sheriff’s Department officials working in Moorpark. The report compares Santa Paula, Moorpark and Port Hueneme because of the cities’ comparable sizes.

The grand jury made three recommendations: that a new city manager be hired quickly; that the city resolve “the existing friction” between officers and the chief; and that the city establish a process to select a new chief when Adair retires after 30 years of service.

Whereas the grand jury avoided assigning blame for the department’s problems, the union wasn’t so diffident.

It charged that Adair had “put officers’ lives in danger due to his failure to maintain an up-to-date knowledge of law enforcement tactics.”

For example, Adair allegedly backed up an officer on a call without letting him know he was doing so.

“It would be no way acceptable for a first-year rookie officer to respond to a man-with-a-gun call and not advise his fellow officers he was on the scene,” the report said.

The union also contended Adair endangered a game warden last year when officers had surrounded a mountain lion sitting in a tree. It claimed Adair positioned his officers in spots where they inadvertently could have hit the warden with cross-fire.

The report also faulted Adair for allegedly forgetting to forward a grant application and nearly costing the city $45,000 for its High Risk Entry Team. It also maintains that his failure to complete another report cost the force three additional officers.

The union contends that Adair “hindered investigations and embarrassed the agency” on several occasions. At one point, he allegedly told an older woman to move from her childhood home because of gang members firing at it, instead of “meeting the issue of gang activity.”

The union made its no-confidence vote in August, after what members described as a two-year attempt to get the department to make changes.

Last year the discord was so great that a committee called the Public Safety Strategy Team was formed to look into it. After a few months, the committee--referred to by police and residents by the acronym PSST--released a report pointing out that more than a third of Santa Paula’s officers were considering leaving the force.

The situation was bad enough that some department critics last year recommended the city contract with the Sheriff’s Department for police services.

In response, the council had City Manager Warden talk to each of the department’s 30 officers. His December 1996 report to the council emphasized the need to boost pay and add officers. But union officials said Warden ignored much of what officers told them.

When officers complained that he had not accurately reported what they told him, union officials said Warden called them “crybabies.”

Warden could not be reached Friday for comment.