Broadnax shares thoughts on hiring Austin’s next police chief

The Austin Monitor recently sat down with new Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax to discuss some of the more prominent issues facing city staff and City Council as he gets situated in his job. For the first of four portions from the interview, he shares his plans for hiring a new police chief.

Let’s start by talking about the police chief search. Tell me about what you’ve learned from that process, hiring two chiefs in Dallas, and how does any of it apply to what’s going on here with our police chief search?

Jesús (Garza), the prior interim city manager, had held off on beginning the process, understanding that the selection of a new police chief should probably happen and occur under the permanent city manager. I appreciate the Council as well as Jesús not moving forward with that until I was able to be here.

The similarities, particularly when I arrived from Tacoma and came to Dallas in 2017, was the same situation where I think there was an interim in place. The prior chief had retired in October of 2016 and there was an interim who been doing the job, probably almost as long as as chief (Robin) Henderson had. There were different issues and challenges going on at the time, but not too different. Big pension issues, morale issues, being down in officers. Right around that time, because of some issues and challenges with the pension, they lost a lot. We hired a new chief (Renee Hall) by September of 2017. And then I hired the current chief, Eddie Garcia, in 2021. They were similar processes, and I think what we’ll go through will be similar.

What I’ve learned from that is the chief position is probably one of if not the most important appointments that a city manager can recommend, particularly given the level of responsibility day to day, and the folks under their command at any point in time change people’s lives one way or another. Growing up and watching and going through two chiefs, I would argue the type of things that I’ve learned and are looking for is someone with experience in large city operations of law enforcement, being able to work with other governmental partners, whether other cities and chiefs and or at the state or federal level, particularly given the complexity and issues and challenges that larger cities experience and the expectation that they be more readily prepared.

Then just ensuring, again, that a person has the character to be in and close to community, all portions of our community, those that in some cases support police without question, and in communities where there is some concern and history that provides for them to not be as trusting and want them to demonstrate how they police. Finding a chief in this current climate is similar to five and seven years ago as it relates to what law enforcement is undertaking. I know it’s a big responsibility. I think that’s why our process is going to be one that involves some stakeholder engagement, as well as tough questions from some panelists that I think will be across the board in their spectrum of law enforcement that will help equip whomever is going to come in and lead with the understanding of some of the things that the community may be concerned about, that they can get their head around even before they start.

You’re probably limited to some degree with what you can say, but with regard to the 32 candidates that were made public, several are in top leadership positions of maybe some smaller communities and others are maybe in individual sector levels of some bigger departments. How do you weigh out the “big fish, small pond” dynamic, to use an inelegant simile? How do you weigh out the distinction there between limited experience versus someone higher up?

Seeing the names. I think there are a lot of cities that I’m not particularly familiar with, particularly as it relates to the footprint of their police department and levels of responsibilities directly, short of just going off of population. As I’ve learned in local government, in many cases, some issues are really about scale. Problems and challenges are pretty much the same if you got the same types of, I guess, community makeups. But it’s really about scale and depth and experience at the end of the day. I would not say that some smaller community chief wouldn’t have an opportunity or be competitive, no different than a large chief that may not have had the same types of experiences that I’ve seen in the city manager seat and work with my chiefs through. I think it’s a level playing field when it comes to that.

There are definitely differences. Whether it’s a chief or any other positions that I feel, when you come from these large organizations like Dallas or San Antonio, or even Austin, there are not a lot of million-population cities that are out there. Everybody’s going to be reaching up unless you come from one of those cities. If you’re a top 10 city, then I think that speaks for itself. But not every city is there. It’s really about how you lead and what your presence is and what your level of experience is in managing people and all the challenges that come with law enforcement. I’m excited to get in a room and have conversations with the recruiter about who they believe are the top candidates and then go from there.

How does the process unfold from here?

From a schedule perspective, towards the end of June I’ll be sitting down with Mosaic (Public Partners) and they’ll be sharing with me some of their early vetting, and some of their early conversations with individuals to give me a list, hopefully of no more than five to 10 candidates, and have a conversation around that to narrow that even further. From that, sometime in the middle of or during July, we’ll spend some time one on one bringing them in and shortlisting from there. And then hopefully finding a way to get some decisions with some community feedback from my panels on strengths and weaknesses, trying to have Council ratify (a contract) sometime late July and/or sometime early August. Then hopefully, given people in their lives and transitions, if they’re not from here and/or in close proximity, a 30- to 45-day window where I want them to actually be on the ground.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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