Unions poll members about Klein

More than two-thirds of Newport Beach Police Department’s management-level officers think the city should recruit for a new chief of police, according to a poll of the union that represents them.

On the heels of the city attorney acknowledging that Police Chief John Klein’s recruitment violated a city ordinance, a survey of the department’s sergeants, lieutenants and captains shows 70%, or 23 of 33 polled officers, think the city should find a new chief.

The survey did not offer specifics on whether that should happen immediately, where the city could bring in an interim chief during the process, or if the city should wait until the conclusion of a city board’s investigation into all department promotions in recent years.

“I think it’s up to the City Council on what course of action they’re going to take,” Klein said. “I’m not surprised with the results. The [police management association] has presented that there were rules violations, and cops are rule followers ... obviously their opinion is that the process should be redone in their perspective.”

Also on the ballot for the department’s ranking members, whether they should file a grievance with the city regarding Klein’s decision to suspend all promotions while the city investigates the process for those promotions.

Echoing a letter sent from the Police Employees’ Assn., which represents officers below sergeant and non-sworn personnel, 59% of the union’s members disagree with Klein’s decision and think the union should file a grievance.

In a letter to the Civil Service Board, the city attorney and Klein last week, the employees’ association adamantly disagreed with Klein’s unilateral decision and said the department is becoming “increasingly paralyzed by the cloud that hangs over the present administration.”

“A cloud over the administration doesn’t mean that good police work isn’t being done,” said City Manager Homer Bludau, who chalks up both unions’ moves as complaints about the process and not a call for Klein’s ousting. “I don’t see the chief of police of any department being a popularity contest. I don’t view it that way.”

As for the survey in which two-thirds of the department’s leaders called for a new chief, Bludau said, “I’m not sure it’s reflective against Chief Klein as much as it is reflective of the way I hired Chief Klein.”

The city attorney weighed in recently that Bludau violated an ordinance when he recruited for the vacant police chief’s position in 2007 without searching outside the department.

The police management association’s members also called for a renegotiation of the city’s post-retirement agreements with city employees. That agreement, which Bludau signed in violation of City Council policy and kept 19 employees on the payroll improperly after their retirement, would have to be reworked and approved by the council.