Oceanside Police Department Chief Barry Beam took the podium at the annual agency “town hall.” Once every year the Chief would set a date and time and, with the exception of the officers working the street, the entire agency would come together in the Academy auditorium. The commanding officers from each division – Patrol, Training, Communications, Records, Investigations and Special Operations – would each make a statement about the condition of their division. They’d talk about any special accomplishments that had been achieved in the past year and any special projects or plans that they had for the coming year. Questions were allowed but each commander only had 30 minutes allotted to speak and to answer questions. A break was taken after two commanders’ sessions and the town hall meeting finished with the Chief making his presentation, which included awards and commendations for individual officers, and then he took questions for the remainder of his hour.
The past year had been a relatively rough one for the agency. Between the serial murders committed by Mark Correll, better known by the press’ favorite name for him – The Banana Man – and the recent attacks on various members and locations of The Breakers gang, the agency had certainly been challenged. The Chief mentioned officers who had passed away in the year and commented on how the “new guys” were all performing.
Perhaps the Chief’s most favored or best received remarks were those about the coming budget year – which ran July through June – and the fact that the City Council had approved a growth budget for the department. Already at a strength of roughly 225, the agency would add another 12 employees; a five percent increase in manpower. All 12 employees would be officers assigned to patrol upon completion of the academy.
The Chief also announced that, starting immediately but budgeted for the next five years, was the adoption of Quantum Data Storage and management. The announcement had previously been made via department memorandum, but the Chief felt it was a big enough change in one area of operations that it needed to be brought up at the town hall meeting. Along with the adoption of the Quantum system, there would be accompanying training for those involved in its regular use and an annual evaluation of the system to see how the tiered storage system was managing their increasing data needs.
The town hall meeting lasted about four hours total and the agency even sprang for a buffet style lunch afterward. The food wasn’t fancy but there were reasonably healthy selections and plenty on hand. The officers working the street rotated through so they also got lunch on the department but the streets weren’t left without coverage.
Max had never been to such a town hall meeting before and didn’t know agencies even did them. He was pleased to see the level of commitment the Chief had toward communication and information sharing “down the chain of command.” Yes, Max thought to himself, Chief Barry Beam was an example of how an agency leader SHOULD act and carry himself.
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It was a rare occasion that Eddie – Sgt. Eddie Presser – had to say anything in the squad room to get it quiet. Typically, his squad respected him enough to get themselves quiet as soon as he approached the podium. Eddie knew his squad wasn’t being disrespectful. Only one of them – Max Breaklin – even saw him walk in. Everyone else was either facing the other direction or checking out their mail slots and the conversations they were having seemed to all center around the Chief’s Town Hall meeting that had been held that morning.
“Settle in!” Eddie said in his command voice as he made sure his papers were in the proper order on the podium. Within just a few seconds everyone was seated and quiet. Eddie looked around, pleased to see his full squad back and ready to work.
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