SAN ANGELO – The City of San Angelo Charter Review Committee is needing your help. The group is looking for potential options to place on the May 2023 ballot regarding the police chief position in San Angelo.
Currently San Angelo is the only city in the State of Texas that elects a police chief. In all other cities, the Police Chief is hired or appointed much like a school superintendent or a fire chief.
The contentious issue has been placed on the ballot a number of times and each time it has failed.
So far the Charter Review Committee has come up with a plan to give voters options to chose from. The following are those options:
- No changes, leave it as an elected position.
- Remain elected position, add minimum qualifications. Currently the only requirements are to be 18 years of age and have resided in San Angelo for two years.
- Change from elected to appointed (by the city manager) but define a process for the city manager to follow in making his selection for appointment.
The committee has set up a town hall meeting to help get public opinion. That meeting will be held 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14 in East Reception Room at City Hall, 72 W. College Ave.
Should San Angelo Hire or Elect Its Police Chief? Comment Your Thoughts Below!
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It’s a bad idea. Don’t do it
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PermalinkThe chief should be elected by the citizens of San Angelo not appointed by city manager.
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PermalinkWe the citizens of San Angelo have decided time after time that we want to vote for our Chief of Police. Why are we having to vote again to prevent our corrupt city manager from controlling the police department too? How about we vote on a new city manager. Put that on the ballot.
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PermalinkIn order to hire the most qualified candidate for a police dept., most cities the size of SA hire an outside firm to weed through potential candidates, and ultimately they submit to the city commission a short list of very well qualified applicants, all with a long history of law enforcement. The city choses what they deem the best possible choice, usually voted on by the commission, and the city manager is only responsible for making the call to the hiree, and getting he/her on the payroll. Seems a much better option than letting a public, uninformed in the specifics of law enforcement, vote on candidates that could be 18 y.o. and never worked a day as a cop.
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PermalinkThey run campaigns, informing the voters. From what Iv seen I’d rather vote on it than leave it up to “experts”
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PermalinkI assume that any applicants belonging to a band called Funky Monkey get culled immediately.
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PermalinkAt a minimum, there should be a standard set of qualifications if you are elected or if you are appointed. The City charter need to reflect that for the safety of the process.
I agree that San Angelo is "pro-elected" and will likely remain that way. We should strengthen the candidate pool by ensuring we have minimum requirements.
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