The bad feelings between Chief Hurtt and the HPD officers’ union continue to manifest themselves.
As noted in an earlier post this week, Chief Hurtt lashed out at the union survey that found fault with his leadership, claiming bias and complaining about the city’s recently enacted revenue caps.
The head of the police officer’s union responded by sending a letter to Chief Hurtt, as reported by the Chronicle‘s Anne Marie Kilday:
A letter this week to Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt from the president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union strongly suggests the chief should resign.
HPOU President Hans Marticiuc blasted Hurtt in the letter Wednesday for expressing doubts about the scathing results of a recent union survey of 2,200 veteran officers.
In an interview Tuesday with the Houston Chronicle, Hurtt questioned the survey methodology and suggested it had “some biases.” He also said he’d like to see a second survey conducted by a disinterested party.
Marticiuc agreed to Hurtt’s idea for an independent third-party survey in his letter. But he asked: “If an independent survey, by a mutually agreed party, corroborated the lack of confidence among supervisors and first responders at HPD, would you agree to resign immediately as chief and leave HPD to pursue career opportunities in a department more suited to your abilities?”
The sentence Kilday used to set up that excerpt isn’t quite right, since the suggestion is that Chief Hurtt should resign if a followup survey confirms the first survey’s finding.
The Chronicle‘s Kristen Mack followed with a column today that’s worth reading in its entirety. Here are some key excerpts:
Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt is battling an increase in violent crime, open rebellion among union police officers and concerns surrounding his ties and commitment to the city [editor’s note: a veiled reference to the Chief’s trips to Arizona?]. The combination of the three has kept Hurtt in the cross hairs of his critics.
So far he still has the support of Mayor Bill White, at whose pleasure he serves, and the sharpest barbs are coming from the union, which not surprisingly is often at odds with police management.
Still, the appearance that the top cop is in conflict with the ones on the street can’t help the chief’s job security when residents are worried about their own safety.
[snip]
Speaking with the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday, [Union chief] Marticiuc also had a message for White: “The mayor, though I consider him a friend and ally, needs to pay attention. He has to take some responsibility.”
[snip]
The union is part of the city political fabric. It gives campaign donations to city officials it deems “friendly incumbents,” executive director Mark Clark said.
Hurtt, by contrast, is a bureaucrat who has not shown much political acumen under fire.
As if to prove the point, the conclusion of Mack’s column is a quote from the Chief that demonstrates his lack of political acumen:
He said he is not going to address the union’s survey specifically until he is furnished with a copy of officers’ individual responses.
“I’m disappointed. I thought they would have been more professional. The character they displayed is not what I would have expected,” Hurtt said of the union, while facetiously acknowledging, “when I was a police officer, I was a much better chief than I am today.”
I’m not even sure what that last fragment means (feel free to interpret it for me in the comments), but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to blast the rank and file because they filled out a survey honestly.
Finally, since the Mayor’s press shop is adept at burying news that he prefers to avoid on Fridays, we learn today from KTRK-13’s Miya Shay that Mayor White has appointed a babysitter for the Chief and the Union:
Now Mayor Bill White has stepped in to try to get Hurtt and the union to work things out. Some city leaders are calling the ongoing battle between the chief and the union a growing distraction. So in a move to try to bring both sides together Mayor White has appointed an independent liaison, hoping to find some middle ground.
“Mayor White called me, and asked me if I would help bringing a better understanding between Chief Hurtt and the Houston police officer’s union,” said Mike Nichols.
Nichols last worked on the police pension problem. The corporate executive says he believes he can effectively bring both sides to some sort of an agreement. The union is skeptical, but willing to try.
If Mayor White were really serious about appointing a babysitter who would scare the two sides into “better understanding,” he might have considered Andrea Yates!
