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For new Palo Alto Police Chief Andrew Binder, the learning curve shouldn’t be too steep.
Binder, who spent 18 years in law enforcement in the city of San Jose before joining the Palo Alto Police Department in 2015, has been at the forefront of the department’s recent efforts to reform its policies following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. , Minnesota, in May 2020. And when former Chief Bob Jonson announced his plan to resign earlier this year so he could run for Santa Clara County sheriff, he tapped then-Assistant Chief Binder to serve as the superior a Palo Alto cop as acting.
On Monday night, Binder officially relinquished the title of “acting” after the City Council voted 6-1, with Councilman Greg Tanaka opposed, to support City Manager Ed Shikada’s appointment of Binder as police chief. Mayor Pat Burt, who made the motion to approve the appointment, credited Binder with driving the department’s transformation and getting rank-and-file employees on board.
Burt said Binder has gotten the department to “buy into things that a lot of police departments have struggled to implement.”
“It’s not easy to get a law enforcement agency all the way down through unions and ordinary people to accept changes that they might not have been willing to make,” Burt said. “They didn’t understand why, in many cases, they felt attacked over the last few years, and yet I think it’s very important to get them to accept the need, the importance and the value of this whole set of reforms, an achievement, both for the chief and for the department.” generally.”
With the appointment, Binder will receive an initial gross base annual salary of $295,484. Tanaka voted against it after raising some concerns about the details of the contract, including the number of vacation hours the chief must receive. Binder’s contract entitles him to 200 hours of vacation, as did his predecessor Jonsen.
Binder’s appointment followed a recruitment process that included interviews with a 16-member panel of community members and law enforcement experts. Several members of the group addressed the council Monday and urged members to approve Binder’s appointment. Winter Dellenbach, a proponent of recent police reforms on use of force and accountability, said the hiring process is well-designed and worthy of public trust.
She called Binder a “smart, strong leader” and the best choice for the job.
“He is committed to supporting our police policies and accountability reforms enacted in 2020, and is willing to consider more if necessary to increase fairness,” Dellenbach said.
Aram James, a frequent critic of the police department, urged the council not to approve the contract. While he has no objections to Binder, he said he objects to the recruiting process created by Shikada because it does not allow the general public to question finalists for the job.
“A blue-ribbon committee sitting behind closed doors, all signing confidentiality not to discuss what happened during the hiring, is not the same as the press, community and council being able to ask questions in open session of the three finalists,” James said .
Others argued that privacy was necessary to attract a strong field of applicants.
“The reason it’s confidential is because a lot of these people are employed by other police departments and they haven’t told their superiors that they’re looking and they don’t want it to be public information,” said local Hamilton Hitchings, who also sat on the interview panel.
Like Dellenbach, he said he strongly supports Binder’s appointment and praised the new chief’s work ethic and commitment to reform.
“He has been the primary driver of extensive, lasting reforms and improvements in the department over the past several years,” Hitchings said. “He embodies Bay Area values.”
Binder didn’t wait until Monday’s meeting to make his first major policy change. Last Thursday, he announced that the department would soon reverse a highly controversial policy it adopted in January 2021 to encrypt all police radio communications. Under the new policy, which Binder said will be implemented before Sept. 1, officials will communicate over the open channel and adopt new policies to protect personal information over the airwaves to comply with a recent directive from the state Department of Justice.
Council members Greer Stone and Tom DuBois praised the new policy change, which Stone said reflects Binder’s strong leadership and fearlessness.
“It speaks volumes, especially for someone in your position to be able to get out there in such a public way,” Stone said.
Binder said it’s really important to him to give the community access to what the police are doing. He praised the department’s staff and said he was proud of the work they were doing.
“We don’t always get it right, and I’m the first to admit it,” Binder said. “One of the things I’m really proud of is that we have experience, I think. As evidenced by the encryption issue, where we are always looking to improve or improve.”
He acknowledged the heavy scrutiny that comes with the job, but said he was up to the task.
“The responsibility starts with me. I recognize that as the leader of this department,” Binder said. “The city manager will hold me accountable, the council will hold me accountable, the community will hold me accountable. I’m not afraid of it.”
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