Chris Magnus just moved from Fargo, North Dakota to the East Bay city of Richmond.  Magnus is not relocating for some cushy, high-tech executive job–he’s agreed to become the City of Richmond‘s new police chief.  Richmond‘s new top cop, who started his first day on the job yesterday, jumps from the nation’s 12th safest city to California‘s most lethal city.  (Last year, Richmond had 40 homicides, more per capita than any other city in the state.) 

Magnus is taking on an enormous job.  Richmond has long been plagued by violent crime, drugs and poverty.  The department is understaffed, overworked and not trusted by the citizenry.  But the new chief is not making any promises about the changes he’ll make in his new hometown.  He told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The citizens of this community have probably heard too many promises." 

But Magnus is expected to implement a new community policing program and will begin to use COMSTAT, a data-driven management program that has helped reduce crime in New York City and other communities around the nation, to chip away at Richmond’s crime problem.  It will be interesting to see if he is able to succeed where other cops have failed. 

On the political side, there have been major changes in the past two years in Richmond‘s top city management.  Since 2003, the city council has replaced four top administrators:  city manager, city attorney, police chief and fire chief.  Interesting, in a city where African Americans make up the largest segment of the population, four African American managers have been replaced with four white people.  To be sure, skin color has nothing to do with competence or job skills.  But one can’t help to be noticing that Richmond, a predominantly black city, has handed its top jobs over to white men.  What happened to diversity and the importance of representing the racial and ethic make-up of the community?  I guess when things are as bad as they are in Richmond, there comes a point when even Bay Area liberals chuck diversity and political correctness out the window in order to find the best person for the job. 

"I think the people in Richmond are so frustrated that they are just willing to try anything that works,"  Jim McMillan, an African-American former pharmacist who served on the city council from 1983 to 1995, told the East Bay Express last month. "And if the police chief or city manager happens to be Caucasian, I think they’re willing to let it work its way out." Check out the full story about these changes in Richmond (and their political impact) in the East Bay Express by clicking here.

Chris Magnus may fit in just fine in the politically correct Bay Area.  When he served on the United Way Board of Directors in Fargo, he raised eyebrows by advocating that funds be held from the Boy Scouts of America and other groups that "discriminate" on the basis of sexual orientation.  Despite his personal problem with the Scouts, Magnus did not prohibit the police department from continuing the Scout’s Explorer program.

On a lighter note, Magnus arrives in Richmond just as one of the city’s most notorious criminals has returned home to stand trial for charges of rape and child stealing.  Porn "star" Genevieve Elise Silva, 20-year-old who has appeared in at least five “films,” is accused of running off with a 15-year-old friend of her younger brother with whom she had a sexual relationship and apparently also supplied with illegal drugs.  The two ran off to Oklahoma last fall until the boy’s parents found him and sent him to a drug rehab program.  Silva then stayed with her tattooed momma in Oklahoma until signing an extradition agreement early this month.  (Really, male FR bloggers, this is a crime–not a high school boy’s dream come true!).  Magnus, who thought he was coming to a town full of gang-bangers and drug pushers, instead is greeted with an Inquirer-type story that is no doubt causing a fair number of jokes in the halls of Richmond police department.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.