I read the June 16 lead article in the Times-Call describing candidates for the position of Public Safety chief. And then read it again. Something was missing. The short paragraphs describing general qualifications of five men did not mention restorative justice and community relations. Huh? Please tell me there wasn’t enough space for those details and not that the candidates have no experience in these two very important areas.

Is there evidence that these men can communicate with us? That ability was the first thing I noticed about Longmont’s police chief when we moved here. Our chief at that time regularly revealed policies and procedures through columns on the TC’s Opinion page. He carried that message speaking to local community groups.

Longmont has been served by restorative justice principles for over 26 years through the Longmont Community Justice Partnership, LCJP. Resident volunteers work with our police officers to restore individuals who have broken laws back into the community and not just send them to jail. During those 26 years over 4,000 adult and young-adult offenders have been kept in the community and guided to become better citizens. Think about this. Nationally, the recidivism rate, for those incarcerated for crimes in the criminal justice system is right around 67%. Here, that rate is less than 10%. This is an overwhelming success story.

Our police officers have been trained and are authorized to place offenders in a restorative justice case process, not send them to jail or hand out a summons to appear in court. Further, the main selection criterion for our municipal judge was belief in applying restorative justice.

Let us hope there is more to this story than has been made public. What were the KSAs — knowledge, skills and abilities required — for applicants for the job of Public Safety chief?

These candidates prove another point sources have confided to me. Longmont’s Public Safety Program is unique. Just look at the final five candidates. None are from programs like ours. They are either experts in police or fire, not both. Also, other cities and states come to Longmont for training in Restorative Justice because our LCJP is the best in the country with numbers to back it up. All this begs the question: Why wasn’t someone within our Public Safety program selected? Did no one from the former chief’s staff apply? And, if not, was there effort to encourage their application?

Begging more questions: Where are the women and minorities among the five finalists? How can a former state trooper on the verge of retirement, or a planner/analyst from a city of 6,800 in Georgia relate to a city of 100,000 with 33% Latino population? Plus, anyone with local knowledge knows the city of Denver has a less than stellar reputation in public safety.

I urge you to watch the Q&A video of these five candidates answering questions from the audience. You can find it on the city’s website. Then let Assistant City Manager Sandra Seader hear from you.

Bill Ellis is an advocate for restorative justice and a Longmont resident since 2002. Reply to