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Mayor Ted Wheeler talks about his planned national search for a Portland police chief, one of his campaign pledges.

(Maxine Bernstein|Staff)

After scrapping plans to hire a private firm to run Portland's national search for a police chief, the mayor is pressing ahead with an anticipated four-month, city-run process that will include some community input and an expected offer to a finalist by the end of July.

Mayor Ted Wheeler described the perfect candidate: Someone who has remarkable leadership skills to effectively manage the nearly 1,000-member force and develop strong ties with the community, holds significant law enforcement experience and shares his vision of restoring community-based policing where officers don't drive through neighborhoods but have time to get out of their cars to get to know the residents and business people they serve.

"The city of Portland had a community policing model and over a period of many years, we gutted it, and that's made the job harder for police,'' Wheeler said. "We've got a tremendous amount of work ahead of us in restoring the community's trust.''

A chief also must be committed to increasing diversity within the force, from recruitment of new officers through to promotions, and have knowledge of Portland and what's important to the people of the city, the mayor said.

"The community supports community policing,'' Wheeler said. "They want more direct engagement with police. They want a more genuine relationship with their police bureau.''

The search comes amid great turmoil within the Police Bureau. Chief Mike Marshman, appointed by former Mayor Charlie Hales at the end of June upon the retirement of Larry O'Dea after O'Dea shot his friend in the back during a camping trip, was recently placed on paid leave while he and his executive assistant, Lt. Mike Leasure, are under investigation. The inquiry stems from a discrepancy on a police training log. Two captains and a sergeant are also on leave facing internal investigations tied to an unrelated matter.

The bureau is struggling with a staffing shortage, its controversial handling of large-scale protests, a recent officer-involved fatal shooting of a black teenager and the adoption of a myriad of policy, training and accountability reforms mandated under a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Before Chris Davis was named acting police chief, he had only worked as an assistant chief since January, and previously was promoted from captain to a commander of Central Precinct in June.

About two months ago, the city put out a request for proposals for a company to help conduct a national search for chief, and only one firm responded. Wheeler said he believes several were "scared off'' by the city's desire to allow community input from the get-go, including in the drafting of a job description. One firm submitted a proposal, but the mayor recently decided not to go with that firm and have the city's Bureau of Human Resources conduct the search instead.

"It was not a very strong proposal,'' Wheeler said, declining to identify the one firm that sought the contract.

The mayor's office already has met with three selected community panels to seek local input on crafting a job description for police chief, such as what characteristics, skills and qualities the applicant should hold, and how the selection process should proceed. He declined to identify who was invited to sit on the panels, but said a "broad swath of the community'' was represented.

More community outreach will be done, and the mayor said he would like a job description to be posted sometime in May. Under a tentative schedule, screening of applicants would occur in June. Some community representatives would be seated on interview panels of the finalists. A candidate would be selected by the end of July. The mayor doesn't plan to have finalists meet the public in a town hall-type gathering, he said.

Joseph Wahl, of the city's Office of Equity and Human Rights, will be the point person for the search, according to Michael Cox, the mayor's spokesman.

City officials plan to draft a formal plan and a proposed budget by the end of the week for the search.

An early estimate of the cost of holding a national search is about $50,000.

The city has only brought in two police chiefs from outside who did not rise through the bureau's ranks. The last one was Mark Kroeker, hired in December 1999 after he retired as a deputy chief for the Los Angeles Police Department. He resigned under pressure by then-Mayor Vera Katz in 2003.

The only other chief appointed from outside Portland's ranks was Bruce R. Baker, whom then-Mayor Neil Goldschmidt plucked in 1974 from Berkeley, Calif. The marriage of Baker and the bureau was not a happy one. Baker once recommended to city officials that he be the last or "one of the last" chiefs to be chosen from outside the bureau.

When Hales named Marshman as chief in late June, Mayor-elect Wheeler said it was his plan to hold a national search and welcomed Marshman to apply for the post. Marshman earlier this year told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he hadn't talked directly with Wheeler about what type of chief Wheeler was looking for, and hadn't decided yet whether to put his name in the running.

"I've not made any particular assumptions at this point about where candidates would come from,'' Wheeler said Friday.

He said he also has not made any decisions on Marshman's future, noting that the Independent Police Review Division is conducting the investigation and he has not seen the outcome of it yet. He said it was the city's independent oversight division, under the control of the city auditor, that alerted him to the investigation.

The mayor said he placed Marshman on paid leave as the investigation continued, "in order to be consistent'' with bureau practices. Two captains were placed on paid leave weeks earlier stemming from an unrelated matter.

Some close observers of the Police Bureau have questioned whether the mayor's recent move placing Marshman on paid leave provided the mayor with political cover to move forward with the national search for a chief. But Wheeler's spokesman Cox called that suggestion "absolutely without merit,'' and Wheeler said he always planned to follow through on his campaign pledge to conduct a national search.

Wheeler is critical of the city's prior handling of the police bureau.

"Policing is a core function of city government,'' he said. "It has not gotten the attention it's due.''

He said he believes the city, through budget cuts, allowed the bureau to move away from a mission of community-based policing, and operate grossly understaffed. As of February, the bureau had 62 vacancies, compared to 43 at the same time last year. Fifty sworn officers also are now eligible to retire, with another 44 eligible by the end of 2017.

"As the new mayor,'' Wheeler said, "it's kind of surprising to me where we let it get to this point.''

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian