Where's the Police Chief?

The St. Pete Police administration took a bit of a pounding this past week. First Karl Nurse took a swipe at Police Chief Chuck Harmon: Tampa Bay Times, Ann Waverly, Councilman Karl Nurse unloads on the mayor, the police chief and missed opportunities, as being "reactive" and somewhat uncharacteristically the Chief fired back as reported by Mark Puente in his Tampa Bay Times piece, St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon Disputes Criticism.

What I found most interesting is the last line in the Puente article where Harmon is quoted as saying "I 'm writing this on a I Phone so please forgive any spelling or grammar errors. Please call me if you have any questions."

The interesting part is that the Police Chief is so personally technologically adverse that he once turned a video conferencing telephone installed in his office on a table facing toward a wall so no one  could "spy" on him, and required that the unit in the main conference room remain unplugged when not in use.

 I just found the whole I-Phone thing fascinating. I guess golf can be a highly motivating force when it comes to applying technology to what you really want to do.

Speaking of golf and time out of the office, check out Steve Thompson's Piece in the St. Petersburg Tribune St. Pete Police Administrators Often Gone On Fridays.

Don't get yourself to riled up over this one.

During the 5 years I was on the management team at the PD, senior management coverage was usually pretty light on Fridays. I worked Fridays because it was almost always quiet on the third floor (that's where the management staff hangs out) and you could actually get some work done.

Read Steve's article carefully. Hidden in there is a good point: when you work in law enforcement, you never ever really get a day off.  My job was purely as a manager on the computer and communications side of the department. Even I would occasionally get calls on weekends, nights and days off if something went wrong or a major event happened.

I will say this, in the 5 years I was manager of the Information and Communications Services Division, there was never a time when I needed senior management support for an issue or a problem that it was not almost immediately available.

Nurse also rapped Mayor Bill Foster saying “The disappointment with the mayor” in the black community is real, he said. Nurse also criticized the city’s redevelopment, codes enforcement and police departments." “The mayor has never really managed people before.”

The first 10 items in the Foster 40 were related to the Police department. The truth is there was never any real effort to move on them while I was there, and an interesting fact is the only place a list of the Foster 40 was posted at the Police department was on a wall outside my office. Since the PD had about 800 employees or so and only 13 of them worked for me, the impact was shall we say - minimal.

Foster took a hands off approach with the PD,  Harmon did what he wanted and the result is almost 4 years later things are not any better in South St. Pete.

I can't imagine why anyone living south of Central would vote for Bill Foster.

e-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net, or send me a Facebook Friend request.

Campaign Disclosures: Contributor to Kathleen Ford Campaign, Darden Rice Campaign, Concern Citizens of St. Petersburg