It’s been roughly a year since down as Denver’s sheriff amid controversy about his troubled department, and yet the search for a permanent replacement has not yet really begun.
This slow approach to what is arguably the city government’s most gnawing problem is bewildering.
City officials say they wanted to wait until a report by independent consultants on the department’s problems was released.
That report was delivered May 21, and yet the posting for the sheriff’s job has not yet occurred — eight weeks later — although we are told to expect it this week.
The report, produced by Hillard Heintze of Chicago and the OIR Group of Los Angeles, delivered 14 key findings and 277 recommendations for change.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock immediately announced the creation of an “internal implementation team” made up of staffers and city officials led by Director of the Department of Public Safety Stephanie O’Malley.
The mayor’s press release after the report’s release said several changes in the sheriff’s office already had been made — including training officers on the use of force reports, translating grievance and sick call forms into Spanish and requiring majors to review all grievance reports.
The report, however, identified plenty of other problems that need immediate attention — such as not having a method for counting inmates and keeping track of who is in court or at the hospital, and failing to account for gang affiliation when assigning inmates to cells.
Rather than a team of government officials mulling over possible changes, a new sheriff should be deciding how to run the department.
This process is taking too long.
In November 2013, the first whistle was effectively blown by Independent Monitor Nick Mitchell in a report that pointed out the department’s flawed process by which inmates filed grievances.
Other jolts to the agency followed, including the city having to pay out $3.5 million to an inmate who was tortured in the jail.
Then Wilson stepped aside.
A spokeswoman for the safety department said the last two months have been spent defining the job description, developing the process and building a website where the job will be posted.
Once the job is posted, the city expects a 90- to 120-day search. So it could be two full years from when Mitchell’s report was released to when a new sheriff is finally hired.
Perhaps the mayor should form a task force to examine what is taking so long.
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