By Steve E. Swenson
Bakersfield Californian
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A few months ago former Bakersfield police chief Bob Price walked into the lobby of the police building and saw wall to wall people.
A clerk and a desk officer were trying to thin out the crowd, said Price. He retired in 1988 after 15 years as chief and 32 years with the department. He was also the city’s mayor for eight years, ending in 2001.
“It came to me maybe some retirees would be interested in volunteering to help out,” Price said.
He ran the idea by Chief Bill Rector who indeed was struggling with the loss of 29 officers and 17 civilian staff in the last nine months. The department now has 343 sworn officers and 126 civilian employees.
“I’m all ears,” Rector recalled telling “Chief Price.”
With that, the 77-year-old Price sent out letters and assembled 24 retirees who agreed to do what they could.
“It’s been great,” Rector said.
Retired police officers, clerks and technicians are volunteering one to a few days a week to help put more officers out in the street or reduce the backlog of work in the building, the chief said.
People like retired lieutenants Joe Moesta and Brad Singleton.
Moesta, who retired in 2004 after 34 years with the department, isn’t back on the streets rounding up bad guys, but he’s taking reports so the younger officers have more time to do that.
One day a week he gets a list of telephone calls to return or telephone reports to make to free up an officer. “I whittle the list down,” he said Wednesday evening in a telephone call from Monterey. He had just finished a round of golf and he and his wife were celebrating their 42nd wedding anniversary.
Obviously, the volunteering isn’t taking away from the fun of his retirement, he said.
Singleton too said he’s happy to give back to the department and the community after they gave him “a livelihood for more than 30 years (retired 1995).”
Singleton and Price take police files to court, freeing up an internal affairs detective to investigate cases.
Other retirees do office work in vice, property room, crime lab, pawn shop theft reviews and the lobby.
Records supervisor Melissa Roark couldn’t thank the volunteers enough for helping to serve the crowds in the lobby. They really relieve pressure on Mondays when a lot of people come in to try to get their cars out of impound from over the weekend, Roark said.
Retirees such as Shirley Lucas, the former secretary to Price and other chiefs, and former records supervisor Sandy Diem use their experience to quickly help people in the lobby. Police Detective Mary DeGeare said when she saw the two retirees on Tuesday, it was “two (police) icons helping the public.”
Crime lab supervisor Cathy Kibbey said she appreciates how the retirees cut the backlog of photographs of accident and crime scenes that need to get to attorneys and insurance companies. For example, it helps domestic violence victims get restraining orders more quickly, she said.
The retirees couldn’t help but notice the changes since they’ve been gone, including all the new officers they’ve never met before. But Singleton and Moesta said they like talking with “the old timers who are still there.”
Rector said he used to be a newcomer when Price was chief.
“I was fortunate to have role models like Chief Price,” he said. “It’s been great that the character displayed in the early 80s is being replicated all over again now.”
Copyright 2009 Bakersfield Californian