By Eva-Marie Ayala
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
DALLAS, Texas -- A deputy city manager from Arlington and a Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department chief deputy are among 69 candidates applying to be Dallas’ new police chief.
But after seeing the final list of candidates, some City Council members were concerned that there weren’t many applicants from major metropolitan police departments.
Councilman Mitchell Rasansky, who sits on the city’s Public Safety Committee, said most of the candidates are from cities with small populations, some of which he had never heard of before Monday.
“Am I interested in looking at someone from a city the size of Waxahachie? The answer is no,” Rasansky said. “At first blush, [the current list] doesn’t get me too excited.”
Rasansky said the council might need to consider approving more money for a police chief’s salary.
Monday was the deadline to apply, but officials said they would take any applications postmarked with that date.
Finalists are scheduled to begin a round of interviews in mid-April. City Manager Ted Benavides, who will do the hiring, has said he hoped to hire a new chief by late May.
Assistant City Manager Charles Daniels said the application process could be reopened if Benavides believes that the pool of candidates needs to be expanded.
But Daniels said a number of highly qualified individuals have applied, including some from within the department.
He said he expected internal candidates to get serious consideration but did note that some council members’ sentiments don’t “do a whole lot for their self-esteem.”
Daniels said one reason that big-city police chiefs did not apply is because many have been in their jobs two years or less, according to research done for Dallas.
But the position did attract Arlington Deputy City Manager David Kunkle.
Kunkle spent three years as Grand Prairie’s police chief and then 14 as Arlington’s before he was promoted to deputy city manager in 1999. Now his duties include overseeing police, fire and various other city services.
He was unavailable to comment Monday.
Chief Deputy Hank Pope, 54, who has been with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department for 11 years, also applied.
He began his law enforcement career as a Haltom City police officer 27 years ago, rising through the ranks to assistant chief.
He then was a homicide detective in Arlington before joining the Sheriff’s Department.
Now, he said, he is interested in addressing the challenges Dallas is facing, namely lowering the city’s crime rate, which has been one of the highest of those in the nation’s largest cities for several years.
The No. 1 priority “has got to be doing something that has a direct impact on the crime rate,” he said.
McKinney Police Chief Doug Kowalski joined other former Dallas brass who applied for the job, including Irving Police Chief Lowell Cannaday and Manuel Vasquez, who now oversees the Dallas school district’s new police force.
Other candidates include police executives from Minneapolis, Miami and Memphis and 10 internal applicants, including interim Police Chief Randy Hampton.