CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The city of Clearlake is still deciding on the process it will pursue to select its permanent police chief.
Craig Clausen, a Clearlake Police Department veteran, has been filling the post on an interim basis since the end of 2010, when Chief Allan McClain retired, as Lake County News has reported.
At that time, the council indicated it would take up hiring a permanent chief once it had a city administrator in place.
Interim City Administrator Joan Phillipe – who joined the city this past October – told Lake County News on Friday that the city has not yet decided how it will proceed with selecting its permanent chief.
She said she still has to evaluate what route is best – open recruitment versus appointing Clausen.
The matter could possibly be on the agenda for the council’s next meeting on Thursday, Feb. 23, she said.
Closed session performance evaluations of Clausen have been on the last two Clearlake City Council meeting agendas – Jan. 26 and this past Thursday.
Thursday's closed session also included a discussion of the police chief appointment. When the council convened in open session on Thursday night, there was no action to report, according to Mayor Joey Luiz.
Concerns about the selection process and the closed session discussions led to a packed council chamber at Thursday's meeting.
Community members who wanted an open recruitment process and those who wanted Clausen to get the permanent appointment – some of them wearing black “Support Clearlake Police” t-shirts – were present in the audience.
Since there was no agendized open session item on the chief's selection, community members addressed the council during the meeting’s public comment period.
Approximately 10 people spoke directly to the police chief’s selection, with six of them urging the council to give Clausen the job and four asking them to go out to an open recruitment.
“Filling this position without a recruitment would be irresponsible,” said Clearlake resident Tim Williams, who added that the position was too important to settle for anything less.
Fred Gaul, a police volunteer, credited Clausen with building up the department to almost full strength; he said the department was almost a dozen officers short when Clausen took over as interim chief.
“Right now we have a 16-year veteran that’s been doing the job for over a year at your request,” Gaul said.
Clearlake Oaks resident Olga Martin Steele, who has experience in human resources and as a public agency chief executive officer, also urged the council to go to a competitive selection process, suggesting that if they don’t there will be a sense that the process was not fair.
Steele, who co-hosts Sheriff Frank Rivero’s radio show and was his campaign manager, said there has been controversy about Clausen, and referenced a criminal investigation Rivero had reopened on Clausen last year regarding allegations that Clausen assaulted an elderly female neighbor in 2010.
The matter eventually was settled following an investigation by Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster. He required Clausen to apologize to the woman, who reportedly did not want to press charges, as Lake County News has reported.
Steele said Clausen’s actions were unbecoming, and many people thought he got a break in the case.
Luiz told the chamber that while there was “near hysteria out there” developing over the matter, there would be a public aspect to the process.
“By law there’s no contract that can be approved without coming to you folks,” he said.
Chuck Leonard, a retired Clearlake City Council member, also advocated on behalf of Clausen, who he credited with doing a good job.
Leonard added that most of the people demanding the city go outside to recruit had previously demanded local hiring for city jobs.
Phillipe said Friday she will consider the public comment from Thursday's meeting in making a recommendation to the council on the next steps to take in the permanent chief's hiring process.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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