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Santa Clara Survey: Residents Overwhelmingly Support Electing Police Chief and City Clerk

By Robert Haugh

The Santa Clara Charter Review Committee is currently surveying Mission City residents to see if we want to continue to elect our Police Chief and City Clerk.

The answer is coming back with an overwhelming yes.

As of this weekend, the survey had 303 visitors and 258 responses.

There were 80 registered responses and 178 unregistered responses.

75 percent of registered respondents want to continue to elect the Police Chief.

70 percent of respondents want to continue to elect the City Clerk.

The results are similar to one from June 2023.

Santa Clara Police Officer Association (POA) President Jeremy Schmidt shared with the City Council a survey commissioned by the POA of Santa Clara voters at a Council meeting.

According to POA survey, 66 percent of voters didn’t know the Chief was elected. After they learned that information, 73 percent wanted to keep the right.

The Charter Committee survey will close on Friday, October 6, 2023.

Here’s a link to the survey.

10 comments

  3. Yes, it is a relatively small sample size for a survey, but the SURVEY asks the wrong questions.

    Biased much?

    Those who argue for surrendering citizens’ right to select a police chief reflexively squawk “Santa Clara police chief candidates must meet two main criteria: live in Santa Clara and be employed as a police officer in any city.”

    Why is it the survey NOT LIMITED to determine whether a Police Chief SHOULD or SHOULD NOT live in the city? Answer: because that does NOT serve the dark overlord, Darth York.

    Reply

  4. Santa Clarans know this:

    (1) An Elected Police Chief is a Servant to the “Public,” whereas an Appointed Police Chief is a Servant to a “Master” that yields Power to Appoint or Fire WITHOUT Public Input.”

    (2) An elected police chief IS Democracy(!) in action (selected by the people), whereas an appointed police chief IS one more step to Authoritarianism or Dictatorship (selected by a tyrannical group or a single despot).

    (3) The eternal and righteous motto of police officers is “to Protect and to Serve.” Who does an Appointed police chief serve? A Master other than the Public.

    While some local writings are in favor of an Appointed Police Chief, those writings rely on biased collegiate research (i.e., book smart, street dumb professor types) or non-police city officials who would benefit to gain power over the police chief while taking away citizens’ right to select a police chief.

    If Santa Clara politicians dictate who is Chief of Police for the City of Santa Clara, us citizens will eventually experience the political machinations of a city council and mayor that are empowered to ‘hank’ the leash around the neck of the police chief, regardless of negative affects upon Santa Clarans. Apart from lofty and misinformed arguments in favor of an Appointed police chief, please consider reality:

    ***IN Seattle, WA, the mayor ‘appoints’ a police chief. In 2020, the mayor prevented the police chief to enforce laws, and much vandalism & destruction of citizens’ lives, including violence and death, resulted in “CHAZ.” This is Great for Santa Clara, right???

    ***IN Portland, OR, Mayor Wheeler as “police commissioner” oversees, politically, the Portland Police Bureau (as a police commission) to ‘appoint” a police chief, who is BEHOLDENED to its political superiors. Acknowledging the rot of Portland as a city in June 2023, the currently Appointed police chief concurs that in downtown Portland the economic recovery from the pandemic continues–with plenty of vandalism, property crime, and open-air drug markets. This is Great for Santa Clara, right???

    ***IN San Francisco, CA, the mayor Appoints and politically controls the Chief of Police. Ask yourself, do you want Santa Clara to become San Francisco? Needles, feces, drug dealing, theft, assaults, murder, etc.? For example, recently police in a police car did not get out to stop a burglary in broad daylight. The following link describes this horrible event with excuses by mayor-controlled police… no high speed chase was required. However, a duty-bound officer failed to engage a criminal before their own very eyes.

    https://youtu.be/NOzxwUbXLqc

    This is Great for Santa Clara, right???

    ***In Los Angeles, the Chief of Police is politically appointed by the mayor (the crime and filth have pushed many movie stars to move out of the area). This is Great for Santa Clara, right???

    ***In New York, the mayor appoints the police chief. This is Great for Santa Clara, right???

    —–> This a short list of many.

    The juvenile argument by Scrubs Jain that the city of Santa Clara is the “only city that elects a police chief” falls flat. So far, election of police chief prohibits mayors, city councilpersons, or any other city official to remove our beloved blanket of safety—our police force—by the corrupted 49er 5.

    Viva Santa Clara!

    Reply

  5. Robert,

    It is deceptive to say “residents overwhelmingly support” anything based on this survey because there are far too few respondents. It is not a representative sample of the “residents” of Santa Clara. You could accurately say that “survey respondents overwhelmingly support” continuing to elect our police chief.

    Reply

  6. The fact this survey is not widely distributed is a problem, only 82 respondents claim to be city residents. It’s likely the few people who are responding are extremely polarized and only know about the survey from someone passing it along in a small group who are also polaraized. With an average 30k residents voting year after year in Santa Clara, the survey would need to reach almost 1,000 confirmed residents equally received from all six districts to be considered somewhat relevant. Have you guys seen the POA poll? It’s laughable.

    Reply

  8. Interesting. A lifelong critic of the P.O.A. That is I. HOWEVER, HOWEVER, HOWEVER

    Their phone survey is right!

    Why?
    The results mirror completely 2 high turnout elections in different decades.

    30 years apart.

    The results mirror two 49er sponsored surveys. Almost + or – two percent.

    POA got it right.

    News to Becker, Park, Jain, for 2024, welcome you three to the Wild, Wild West
    An election as Untouchable as Eliot Ness

    Reply

  9. We need more responses to the survey.
    A question from the survey:
    * If you responded yes to amend the City Charter to change the position of Chief of Police from elected to appointed, should the appropriate appointing authority be:
    City Council
    City Manager
    Jed York

    Reply

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