I thought it would be interesting to see what folks on the "other end" of the William McManus nomination are saying, so I checked the Dayton Daily News online. I'm impressed, there will probably be a bumpy ride ahead, though. There were several articles, here is a link to the meatiest:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1221mcmanus.html Here are some relevant excerpts from the article: "The chief's done a great job, but what's really been good in the time he's here is he's brought in a great command staff and he's got good internal people." City Manager Jim Dinneen Dayton City Commissioner Dean Lovelace said he wasn't too surprised to see McManus headed to a city like Minneapolis. "He's a big-city kind of chief," Commissioner Lovelace said. "Seeing the kind of demographics we have in Dayton, the residential segregation, I'm sure that enters into his thinking in terms of quality of life in a Minneapolis versus a Dayton." McManus, 51, came to Dayton upon retiring from the Washington, D.C., force in 2001 after 27 years. When he first arrived in Dayton, he described a feeling of "culture shock" when it came to diversity here. Dayton's department is 88 percent white, and 15 percent female compared to his former department in Washington that was 65 percent black and a quarter female. While in Dayton, McManus has changed policies that govern when officers can shoot at suspects fleeing in cars and when they can engage in high-speed pursuit, and instituted community policing -- moves hailed by the Minneapolis mayor. "Some of the reasons he's attractive to them are the same reasons he was attractive to us." Lovelace said. "He planted some seeds here. He may have been a little impatient, unfortunately." In his first year, McManus shook up the command staff. He kept three people from the previous administration, all white, then went out of state to hire Davis as assistant chief and Maj. Kenton Rainey, from the Ventura County Sheriff's Department in California. He promoted Mark Ecton from sergeant to major. All three are black. Since then, two of the white majors have retired to take other jobs, leaving McManus as the only white male on the top command staff. His wife, Lourdes, is a Peruvian immigrant, and the family speaks Spanish at home. McManus may be best remembered for his controversial policies changing practices regarding use-of-force, cruiser pursuits and racial profiling. While he won praise and quickly made allies among city officials and community leaders, some moves angered some rank-and-file officers and the union that represents them. In August the union voted "no confidence" in the chief. ***** David Piehl Central __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/ REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
