How you can provide input on Fresno's next police chief

ByVince Ybarra and ABC30 Digital Team

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

How you can provide input on Fresno's next police chief

Here's everything you need to know to provide input on the city of Fresno's next chief of police.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The city of Fresno is looking for a leader to head its police department.

To support transparency, the firm helping with the hunt, Public Sector Search and Consulting, held a virtual meeting to gather input from the public.

"We wanted to have an inclusive process to allow genuine feedback from internal and external stakeholders," said Senior Consultant Kenton Buckner.

Buckner led the conversation Friday morning, asking people who attended the meeting various questions.

"The average tenure of a police chief is three to five years, that's nationally. If we think three to five years from this next appointment, what accomplishments do you want to see from the next chief and his or her administration," said Buckner.

One attendee who didn't appear on camera during the meeting said he wants more clarity with police funding.

"If we are curbing crime, if we are making these things go down, I'd like us to not have to spend as much money on it. So, we often see that numbers are going down, but our costs are increasing. So, I'd like to see a better balance in that," said attendee Matthew Gillian.

He added he'd like the next chief of police to understand the city's diverse cultures and be empathetic to people of all backgrounds.

All of the remarks from this forum are just a fraction of the search firm's process to secure the next police chief.

"After gathering all of the information, after interviewing internal and external stakeholders, the group meeting that we have, some of the individual meetings that we have met with and we will meet with, then we will build a brochure," said Buckner.

The city will get the final say on the job listing that will be posted on several recruiting platforms.

Buckner said the applicants will go through an intense hiring process, and they will narrow down the search to just a few candidates before making a final recommendation.

He expects a decision to be made by the beginning of 2025.

The city's former chief, Paco Balderrama, resigned over the summer following an investigation into an inappropriate off-duty relationship with an officer's wife.

Since then, Deputy Chief Mindy Casto has been serving as interim chief.

Click here to register for the Zoom meeting. This link will also allow access to all four meetings.

Here are the dates and times of the rest of the online meetings: