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Finding the best candidates for the job

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A proposal working its way through City Hall that would broaden hiring standards for police lieutenants — thereby expanding the pool of applicants — in many ways can only be a good thing for the city.

Some rank-and-file officers may bristle at the prospect of changing the system to include more outside applicants, but so long as the best person gets the job, in the end, isn’t that what we should be concerned with?

Surely, a compromise can be struck between administrators and officers that could include the best of both positions. If City Hall goes ahead with the changes — which would open recruitment for lieutenants to outside police agencies, amend California Peace Officers Standards and Training certification requirements for sergeants and allow candidates without bachelor’s degrees to apply — some concession should be given to in-house officers.

In the application process, which includes rigorous testing, some level of preference or priority could be given to Glendale officers, providing them with a leg up on the outside competition. But in opening the recruitment up to the outside, it allows police commanders the ability to inject fresh blood when needed.

It could also affirm contentions from some that the best candidates are in-house by putting them up against outside candidates. And there’s nothing to be lost with that.

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