Police Chief Focuses on Safety Priorities

Ron Gibson has been chief of the for less than a year, but he has jumped into his new job by implementing a neighborhood officer program and exploring new tactics for handling property crimes.

Prior to joining the department, Gibson spent 30 years on the police force in Colorado Springs, Colo. Redmond Patch sat down with Gibson to ask him about his transition to Redmond. The following are excerpts from that conversation.

Redmond Patch: Why did you decide to leave Colorado Springs and become chief of the Redmond Police Department?

Gibson: I had just over 30 years with the department, and I went into a deferred retirement program that said I needed to leave within five years.  It wasn’t on a negative side — my time was up.

I always wanted to be a chief of a department. I was a deputy chief in Colorado Springs, so I was looking for an opportunity to be chief of an organization that was about 100 to 150 people total. It needed to be a department that was well established, (with) good credibility and good community support because it wouldn’t really be the choice job to go into a department that needed to be completely restructured and revamped. So Redmond really fit the bill there.

Our daughter lives up in Everett, and so I was kind of looking in Colorado and Washington. I came out last January before I even applied and toured the city and talked to some people in the department and kind of got a feel for it. I thought, "Wow, this is a really great organization, good city, good quality of life."

Redmond Patch: What was your role like in Colorado Springs? What kinds of skills do you bring with you to Redmond?

Gibson: I worked a lot of different jobs at the department there. I enjoy challenges, and I enjoy doing different things, so I think the longest I stayed in any one position was four years. I did everything from (being) a patrol officer answering calls for service, to administrative jobs and the training academy. I worked with our tactical unit for about six years, along with some narcotics work and investigation work. So I think what I brought to the position was experience in all the different facets of law enforcement.

One of my assignments in Colorado Springs was as a precinct commander of a station that had about 120 employees, so it was roughly the same size as Redmond’s police department. That was probably the most rewarding position I had during my career because you could get to know everyone who worked in the station. I was able to get to know the community members and the business owners. I really enjoyed that atmosphere.

Redmond Patch: What are your goals and priorities for the Redmond Police Department going forward?

Gibson: We’ve got a couple officers working as neighborhood resource officers. They are really the coordinators and facilitators for the delivery of service to the community. They’re free from calls for service so that they can work with neighborhood groups and business groups on repeat problems and come up with strategies to address the real root cause of the problem, rather than just keep responding to the same type of call over and over again.

Two of the problems that I’ve asked them to look at specifically is to come up with a formalized approach for us to handle car break-ins and residential burglaries. Those are the two crimes that primarily impact the citizens of Redmond. So, the staff and I have said if that’s our crime — car break-ins and residential burglaries — then let’s do the very best job we can with those.

Redmond Patch: How has the sluggish economy impacted the department?

Gibson: We did take some budget cuts this year, and cut about $900,000 out of the city’s budget. We’re having to be more conscientious on how we’re spending overtime and looking for ways to be more efficient by, again, partnering with other city departments. Maybe there’s ways we can save money by working together, rather than everybody doing their own thing.

(The cuts) did not reduce any of our officers. I lost one civilian position in our records division of our department. So for the citizens, I would emphasize that they should not see any reduction in the delivery of police service. We were hiring for vacant positions throughout the last two years, so we were having to spend overtime to fill positions because we hadn’t hired (the officers) yet. We’re now at 100 percent staffing, so I need less overtime because now I have the right number of authorized positions.

Redmond Patch: Plans for the city's new safety camera pilot program were in place before you joined the department. What are your thoughts on the cameras?

Gibson: I support it. If I wasn’t in support of it, I would have tried to put the brakes on it somewhere. It’s just another opportunity for us to free up existing manpower to work on other community problems and leverage technology to make (the roads) safer for the motoring public.

I know there’s a big concern with red light cameras about the funds that are generated from it. City Council made it very clear to us that any funds we receive will solely be used for traffic safety and community safety projects. It will not be used to hire more police officers. It will not be used to buy more radar devices to write more speeding tickets. The other thing is, if you don’t run a red light, and you don’t speed in a school zone, you’re not going to get a ticket. So as long as you’re not committing traffic violations, it has no impact on you.

City Council has only approved (the cameras) for 2011, and at the end of the year council will decide whether we want to continue the program. If it’s not achieving the goal of making (the city) safer, then we have the option of ending the program.

About Police Chief Ron Gibson

Lives in: Redmond

Age: 52

Education: bachelor’s degree in sociology (Colorado State University); master’s degree in criminal justice (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs)

Family: married to Esther Gibson, two adult children, two grandchildren