In evaluating the nine-year tenure of George Rawson as Police Chief and then Public Safety Director/Police Chief, it is appropriate to judge his tenure according to the standards articulated by him at the time of his hiring in November 2001. Rawson characterized police work as a “higher calling-serving the public” and a “servant style of leadership” where “you need to be concerned about and support employees.” He emphasized Organization Values, including a commitment to “integrity, ethics and professional behavior.” Yet as the years passed, it appears George Rawson acted more in the service of the mayor and less in the service of the public, did not show concern, support or sensitivity to at least one city employee, namely Jane Miller, and did not always act with “integrity, ethics and professional behavior.”
Based on George Rawson’s relationship with City Administrator Rich Guillen and his walking the business district every Friday with City Administrator Rich Guillen, it is inconceivable that he was unaware of the claims of “hostile” workplace environment and forced “early retirement” by several city employees from at least 2003. Yet inexplicably, under his command, at the height of the Jane Miller crisis, Cpl. Steve Rana expressed his opinion on behalf of the Carmel Police Officers Association at the 5 October 2010 City Council meeting regarding Police Department “morale” and the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea being “one of the best places to work.” When Rawson was queried about how it was that a police officer felt compelled to address the public at a council meeting about “morale” and workplace, but had not felt compelled to address the public at a council meeting condemning sexual harassment, employment discrimination, and retaliation and support for a fellow city employee, namely Jane Miller, Rawson did not have the professional courtesy to reply. And he failed to reply as to whether or not he or anyone at the Police Department had taken the time to read Jane Miller’s court file.
In 2002, under Police Chief George Rawson’s command, police officers removed Livingston White Wright campaign signs from the public right-of-way during the campaign for mayor and city council.
In 2004, as Police Chief, George Rawson accepted the position of Public Safety Director to oversee the Carmel Fire and Police Departments, even though he lacked fire fighting training and experience. Moreover, the Public Safety Director position was created originally to avoid the hiring of an independent Fire Chief. Later, when it was discovered that the City had to have the fire department “under the charge of a chief who shall have had previous training and experience as a fireman,” per California Government Code Section 38611, Rawson kept the title of Public Safety Director.
During his tenure in 2007, the City “illegally” installed a speed hump, “a traffic control device,” on Dolores Street which was not approved by the city council or installed as an “emergency.” Furthermore, traffic studies involving radar tests conducted by the Police Department prior to the installation of the speed hump showed drivers did not “tend to speed.” Still, Police Chief George Rawson stated he favored “anything that improves safety and slows drivers.”
And most importantly, with regard to public safety, during George Rawson’s tenure, especially after the completion of CITYGATE ASSOCIATES, LLC Fire Department Consolidation Feasibility Analysis for the Cities of Monterey, Pacific Grove and Carmel, June 12, 2007, the City formally withdrew from consolidation discussions with the Cities of Monterey and Pacific Grove, failed to educate Carmelites on all fire protection service options and failed to make substantive progress on a permanent fire protection services solution. In short, Rawson failed to persuade the mayor and city council members to contract with Monterey for fire protection services or implement another alternative.
In sum, Public Safety Director/Police Chief George Rawson compromised himself and his position by seeming to implement the dictates of one person, namely Mayor Sue McCloud, and forgot the “mission” of the Carmel Policy Department to “protect and serve” all the citizens of the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea.
NOTE: The Carmel Police Department confirmed the fact that Public Safety Director/Police Chief George Rawson will be retiring on 3 December 2010.
7 comments:
Thank you for this informative blog.
We are now all complicit in condoning harassment, discrimination and retaliation at city hall. When the police chief refuses to stand up to the mayor, it is unrealistic to expect a majority of Carmelites to stand up to her too.
Fleeing the truth as opposed to confronting the truth is the difference between cowardice and courage. Unfortunately, in Carmel, people of courage are vastly outnumbered by cowards and so we have the status quo reigning today with absolutely no accountability for obvious wrongdoing.
Nothing empowers an unscrupulous mayor bent on doing whatever she thinks she can get away with more than a morally and ethically challenged police chief. Conversely, the mayor and city administrator would not dare behave unscrupulously faced with a morally and ethically upstanding police chief.
Anyone that thinks George Rawson has been an asset to the city the last 9 years hasn’t a clue of what has been going on inside Sue’s domain. Rawson has always been a flunky for Sue McCloud just as Rich Guillen has always been. Rawson gone and Guillen plus Storm Cloud gone someday might help redeem Carmel’s lost reputation.
Thank you for giving me and other bloggers the option of posting anonymously. I post anonymously because the powers that be in Carmel have a nasty habit of attacking the messenger of a message they do not like or approve of and as a means to deflect attention from not examining the merit and content of the message; redefining dumbing down, Carmel style, I call it.
Mayor Sue McCloud, our hardworking mayor, has been hard at work orchestrating damage control. Talk about coercive workplace environment; within days of each other Carmel City Hall employees come out with a published letter to the editor in the Pine Cone and police officer Steve Rana tells us what a great place the city of Carmel is to work. These events are not a coincidence. That Police Chief Rawson allowed a subordinate to once again do the political bidding for the mayor is repugnant and indefensible. His glaring lack of leadership negatively affects the publics perception of all police officers and chiefs.
There is an ongoing conspiracy of silence obscuring the corrupt nature of little, old Carmel. The main conspirators who knew and did nothing about it are Mayor Sue McCloud, incumbent council members Paula Hazdovac, Karen Sharp, Ken Talmage, former council members Gerard Rose, Mike Cunningham, Erik Bethel, former city employees Sandy Farrell, Margaret Pelikan, Brian Donoghue, Greg D'Ambrosio and Police Chief George Rawson, City Attorney Don Freeman and City Administrator Rich Guillen. Four of them were paid off, 2 resigned from council, one lost an election, one is retiring and 6 remain, including the public face of the scandal, Rich Guillen. Absent human or divine intervention, time will eventually purge Carmel of the remaining bad actors.
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