Following last week’s release of a damning study of the Haines Borough Police Department, the Public Safety Commission this week decided to hold a public forum to get input on how the community should move forward with hiring its next police chief.

A public hearing is tentatively set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2, at the Chilkat Center to discuss the department and what the community wants in its new chief.

“The public does want into this process,” public safety commission chair Jim Stanford said Monday. “I want to hear from the people that support the police department; I also want to hear from the people that are always ragging on the police department, and we have quite a few of those.”

The $22,000 Russell Consulting study found that a “systemic lack of leadership” over the past decade and “a lack of oversight by prior managers and assemblies” have led to the department’s current degraded state. The study found many elements of the department below professional standards.

Interviews included in the study spend a good deal of time discussing Bill Musser, the department’s last permanent chief who resigned in March and left the force in May.

The study includes anonymous summaries from 29 interviews with community members, elected officials, and past and present department employees. In the interviews, people refer to Musser as “unapproachable,” “standoffish,” “rude,” “sarcastic” and “unfriendly.”

Other comments about Musser included: “didn’t want to listen to me,” “doesn’t make you feel welcome,” “main barrier is his level of fitness,” “puts his foot in his mouth a lot of the time,” “have no confidence in what he says,” “phony veneer,” “crawls in a hole to avoid everything,” “described as ‘Sir Talks-A-Lot’ at meetings” and “told me that he doesn’t make friends in the community because they are just criminals you haven’t caught yet.”

Interviewee allegations about former officers included that they have been seen sleeping in their patrol cars, that they were abusive and used excessive force, that they revealed confidential information and gossiped around town, that they failed to follow up on or solve crimes and that they took sexual bribes.

“People shouldn’t have to cringe when they see the police,” one person said, according to the study.

The report also detailed problems with segments of the department and assessed whether they were up to snuff. For example, the jail facility was ranked below standards, as was the dispatch center, evidence room and departmental training.

Policy and procedures manuals were either outdated, not maintained or non-existent, and the department had no inventory control of its assets. Vehicles and the Public Safety Building site were assessed as needing improvement.

At Monday’s public safety commission meeting, manager David Sosa threw out some ideas for discussion at the Sept. 2 public hearing, such as does the community expect 24/7 coverage, what kind of police engagement with the public does the community want to see and what kind of individuals do they want to see working here.

Sosa said the cultural changes that need to take place at the department start with “hiring the right people.” He suggested increased compensation may be one of the changes to attract those “right people.”

“Another part of our conversation may need to be regarding levels of compensation for a police chief, as well as for our police officers,” Sosa said. “One of the things we have seen for years is the levels of compensation for our officers and chief versus that of people in similar positions in similarly-sized communities with a similar scope and responsibility (is that) we pay less.”

According to a 23-page survey filled out by former chief Musser as part of the study, an entry-level officer who has completed his or her academy training starts off at about $47,000 and maxes out at about $63,000. A sergeant or equivalent starts at $50,000 and maxes out at nearly $66,900.

Education-wise, officers are required only to have a high school diploma or the equivalent. The hiring process does not require a drug test, physical agility test, written aptitude test, psychological evaluation, problem-solving ability assessment or conflict management assessment. (It requires a background investigation, criminal history check, driving record check, medical exam and personal interview.)

Currently, in addition to interim chief Robert Griffiths, the department has only two officers: Sgt. Josh Dryden and officer Ken VanSpronsen.

Griffiths said at Monday’s Public Safety Commission meeting that VanSpronsen is a temporary hire. “The temporary hire would become also another vacancy, so we’d either have to hire that person on permanently or we’d have to fill that vacancy with a permanent position,” Griffiths said.

Griffiths did not respond to requests for comment asking him to explain why VanSpronsen’s hire is only temporary and whether his permanency was contingent on the department deciding he is suitable for the position or VanSpronsen deciding he wants to stay on.

Former police chief Greg Goodman said this week neither Russell nor Sosa have ever contacted him to get his thoughts on the department. Goodman worked at the department for 17 years, rising from officer to sergeant to chief. He served as chief from 1999 to 2008.

“I may have had some useful information for them, but they never asked,” Goodman said.

Goodman said he updated the policy and procedures manuals before he left and conducted exit interviews with every officer, asking them why they left the department and what they thought could be done differently.

Goodman was also evidence custodian between 1994 and 1999 before he became chief. “Every piece of evidence was accounted for and logged in,” he said.

When Goodman returned to Haines in 2010 and visited his replacement, former chief Gary Lowe, he found his former office “in a shambles.” “All of his stuff was still in boxes and he had been there for two years. It was horrible,” Goodman said.

Goodman said he supports paying officers more to attract highly-qualified individuals. “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. And that is what they have been doing for years,” he said.

Goodman said he has seen two major recent errors concerning the police department. The first was removing the chief’s status as an officer of the borough, which made him accountable to the whole assembly, not just the manager.

“I think you get a more balanced approach from the borough assembly. You get different people thinking different ways,” he said.

The second error was Sosa’s recommendation, and the assembly’s eventual approval, to not hire a fifth person for the police force because of budget constraints. “That is the biggest mistake (Sosa) has made so far,” he said.

Goodman does not support hiring a headhunting firm to search for the municipality’s next police chief. “If Sosa is worth his salt, he should be able to find somebody who can do that job,” Goodman said.

At Sosa’s request, Russell compiled a grid with prioritized items for how the department might correct some of its problems. In addition to the priority level, the grid ranks the impact to the organization if the problem is uncorrected, the fiscal cost to correct, the personnel cost, the time to complete and the status of the fix.

Organizing and auditing the evidence room is ranked as a high priority, as is recruiting, screening and hiring new personnel. Developing and updating policy and procedure manuals is also listed as a high priority.

Read the study in its entirety at http://www.hainesborough.gov. Click on “Departments,” “Police” and “Police Management Audit.”