By Mara H. Gottfried
St. Paul Pioneer Press
When the state’s new public safety commissioner first sat at her desk this month, she noticed the view from her 10th-floor office in downtown St. Paul.
To Mona Dohman’s left was St. Paul Cathedral. The Capitol’s spire was to her right. The Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial was in the middle.
“I had been sitting at my computer, saying a little prayer, thinking about how I got here, hoping that I can do a good job and serve the people in the right way and I saw the view,” said Dohman, who was raised Roman Catholic. “I thought, ‘I’ve got faith to my left, justice to my right and my passion right in between.’ It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Her passion and faith in justice have led her to blaze some trails. In every law enforcement position she’s held, Dohman’s been the first woman -- as an officer in two small-town police departments; in the Maple Grove police department, where she worked as police chief for the last 10 years; and now as the Minnesota Department of Public Safety commissioner.
“I really try not to focus on that,” Dohman said. “I think it’s more about a dream and more about goals than it is about being the first woman or the first man.”
In Dohman’s new job, she’ll oversee the State Patrol, the crime lab and emergency preparedness. The Department of Public Safety also handles driver’s licensing and vehicle registration.
Dohman said she has told Gov. Mark Dayton, who appointed her, that she would be “taking a little bit of time to assess what’s going on, to make sure that we’re doing what our mission really is and that we’re accomplishing goals. But I am not going to change things up just for the sake of doing it.”
Challenges for Dohman include potential budget cuts and possible record flooding this spring.
Dohman was in Mankato and Winona last week with Dayton and other state officials to talk about flood readiness.
Dohman, one of six siblings, grew up in Vesta, Minn. The town, population 319, is between Redwood Falls and Marshall.
Her grandfather, Vesta’s police chief, helped spark her interest in law enforcement.
Dohman and her best friend in high school pushed to become the first girls to take shop class instead of home economics.
“I had no real interest in baking and cooking, but I really wanted to learn how to change oil in a car and put shingles on roofs and things like that,” Dohman said. “Knowing the job my grandfather did, I was interested in not sitting behind a desk; I was interested in helping people.”
Dohman attended Alexandria Technical and Community College for the law enforcement program.
“She always carried herself with such dignity and grace,” said John Phillips, the college’s law enforcement coordinator at the time. He said he saw those traits on the basketball team, which he coached and where Dohman was the starting point guard who “pretty clearly developed into the leader.”
Dohman’s first police jobs were short stints as an officer in Glencoe and Marshall.
When she became engaged to Ward Dohman in 1983 -- they started dating in college -- Mona Dohman started looking for work in the metro area. Her husband had become a St. Louis Park officer and they didn’t want to work for the same department.
In 1984, the year they married, Mona Dohman became a Maple Grove officer. She patrolled streets and later worked as a detective, first investigating all the child abuse, sex abuse and neglect cases.
Some unsolved Maple Grove cases stick out for Dohman: the 1989 disappearance of Amy Sue Pagnac, 13, and the 2003 hit-and-run accident that killed hockey mom Rebecca Nelson outside an ice arena.
Dohman became chief in 2001 and inherited a department “where the morale was somewhat low,” said Maple Grove City Administrator Al Madsen.
“There was quite a bit of internal turmoil because some folks did not get along well with the previous chief,” he said. “She did a great job of getting people working together and getting them out in the community.”
The Maple Grove police annual budget is $9.2 million and the department has 83 employees.
At DPS, the budget is about $315 million a year with just under 2,100 employees. Dayton’s budget proposal does not reduce funding for DPS; the department likely will face cuts under House and Senate budget proposals, though relatively smaller compared with other areas.
It’s too soon to know what could happen, but Dohman said she’s a “glass-half-full kind of person” and looks at the budget as an opportunity to “assess what we’re doing and the most efficient ways to do what we do.”
Dayton selected Dohman because of her strong experience in law enforcement, in and outside of the metro area; her demonstrated ability to work closely with local and federal law enforcement agencies; and because they have a “sense of shared value of what the department does,” said Tina Smith, the governor’s chief of staff.
“The governor and Mona talked in depth about how public safety is the most basic work that government does. It really is the core responsibility of government to make sure that people are safe,” she said.
Dohman said her work on a statewide level helped prepare her to be commissioner. Gov. Tim Pawlenty appointed Dohman chair of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training in 2010. She became the first female president of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association in 2009.
Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek has known Dohman since she moved to Maple Grove in 1986. Their paths have frequently crossed professionally and personally -- their kids are close in age and they see each other at hockey games, Stanek said.
Stanek, who was DPS commissioner in 2003 and part of 2004, said he thinks Dohman will be good for the job.
“I told Governor Dayton that I think one of the unique qualities she has is she’s a real person, she’s likeable,” Stanek said. “She may wear a badge during the day, but after hours and on weekends she’s very much about her kids, her husband, her community. That’s not easy to balance sometimes, but I think she’s had the right mix.”
Stanek said he believes Dohman’s “one challenge is going to be understanding the politics of being a commissioner of public safety. I think she’s going to be able to overcome that because she’s a good listener and she’s going to surround herself with people who give her good guidance.”
Dohman has begun work-site visits to meet DPS employees. That’s something workers see as a good sign about Dohman, said Jim Ullmer Jr., a State Patrol commercial vehicle inspector and chief steward for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3142, which represents about 800 DPS workers.
Ullmer said he’s heard good things about Dohman from Maple Grove officers, and thinks she’ll bring “a bit of change” to DPS. “I think change is always good,” he said.
Dohman faces Senate confirmation. House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, said he jokingly tried to talk the governor out of hiring her away from Maple Grove and would recommend to Republican senators that they “100 percent give her the green light.”
Andrew Rothman, Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance vice president of government relations, doesn’t know Dohman, but has heard things that make him think she doesn’t support gun rights.
As Maple Grove chief, Dohman “did not have a great reputation for fulfilling her requirements” to issue or deny permits to purchase guns within seven calendar days of application, Rothman said. For one person, it took more than seven weeks and required the applicant to get a lawyer involved before the permit was issued, Rothman said.
“The public safety commissioner does have some discretion as it relates to carry-permit law, and I’m concerned about that,” he said. “She is unproven at this point as to whether she’s going to do her job in a businesslike manner or whether she’s going to play politics.”
Dohman said she believes in the people’s right to bear arms.
“The bottom line is, I can say there never was a time where I held or delayed making a decision (on a purchase permit) because of my opinions about whether people should have a gun or not,” she said.
Another item on Dohman’s plate: continue to mend fences with the public, especially minorities, after the demise of the Metro Gang Strike Force. The past DPS commissioner, Michael Campion, cut off funding to the Metro Gang Strike Force in 2009, which shut down.
The move came after the state legislative auditor found the strike force couldn’t account for more than $18,000 in seized cash and 14 seized cars. An independent review later said that perhaps a dozen strike force employees engaged in misconduct, and some in criminal acts, by taking seized goods for their own use.
The Hennepin County sheriff’s office is still investigating the strike force.
The independent review showed some officers targeted people of color in questionable seizures.
Nekima Levy-Pounds, director of University of St. Thomas School of Law’s Community Justice Project and an associate law professor, said she thinks Dohman “should make deliberate attempts to reach out to communities of color and be willing to work collaboratively to address concerns” in light of the Metro Gang Strike Force and racial disparities in the justice system.
Dohman said she’s already begun reaching out to people who will introduce her to different communities, and “will be doing whatever I can to forge and build relationships with all communities within the state.”
Copyright 2011 St. Paul Pioneer Press