Ex-Probation Chief Fights for Old Job

Was John C. Lum, the former chief of this low-crime county’s probation department, so devoted to saving young people that he would do anything? Or was he a bully whose messianic passion caused him to intimidate subordinates and ignore the rules?

Or both?

That’s what the county’s five-member civil service commission is trying to sort out in a series of unusually public hearings that opened Wednesday. Most such proceedings are private so the accused employee feels a degree of protection, but Lum insisted that his sessions be open.

He was fired by the Board of Supervisors in March and is appealing to get his job back. The county’s list of infractions against him includes failing to deal well with other police agencies, attempting to implement an armed swat team-like probation unit without authorization, and developing overly close relationships with juvenile offenders.

He took one young offender into his home and even unwittingly transported him to a convenience store where the youth allegedly assaulted a person.

The county’s top administrator ordered Lum “to avoid the appearance of impropriety,” said Deputy County Counsel Wyatt Cash, opening the county’s defense. But Lum failed to do that, Cash said, and 17 employees filed a grievance against him.

The gray-haired Lum, 52, appeared in the hearing room with his wife and two daughters. In an interview, he said the actions taken against him have ruined him financially. He has another job at a correctional facility in Santa Barbara County, but has been reduced to living in a tent during the workweek and rejoining his family in San Luis Obispo on weekends.

Lum’s attorney, Leroy Lounibos Jr. of Petaluma, is representing him for free because “I believe in John as a man of principle.”

Lum was hired in 1994 to bring a fresh approach to juvenile justice in conservative San Luis Obispo. He brought a strong belief in the ability of young people to change and a cynicism about the traditional justice system that led him to challenge many law enforcement conventions. He was accused Wednesday of taking a stand against recommending that convicted wards be committed to the California Youth Authority.

Superior Court Judge Michael Duffy testified that he was serving on the juvenile bench when Lum was hired. Noting that he once had Lum over to dinner, Duffy said, “He’s a nice, personable man.”

But he said he was troubled to learn of Lum’s attitude toward CYA commitments.

“A judicial officer could not have a lot of confidence in recommendations” coming from an agency with such a policy, the judge said.

It was Lum’s involvement with a ward known as C.B. that ultimately got him in serious trouble with his bosses.

“Mr. Lum told me he was committed to staying by this young man, who had a tragic background and had been abandoned by everybody,” Duffy said. Lum took the youth on trips and allowed him to move into his family’s home. But in August 1999, a search warrant was served on Lum’s house in connection with a stabbing at a fast-food restaurant, a crime that allegedly involved the youth.

Richard McHale, a division manager for the probation department, testified that Lum could be bullying and demeaning to employees if he didn’t trust them to carry out his philosophies. He described Lum as getting so red-faced with anger once that he thought Lum was going to explode.

McHale said Lum had a plan for a rifle-toting special operations team that would concentrate on the worst offenders.

Lum believed that if the department worried less about minor offenders, it would free up enough resources to focus on more dangerous ones. The special team plan, however, was dropped.

The hearing is expected to continue today and is likely to last several weeks before the commission rules.