HONOLULU (KHON2) — Three islands, one common challenge: finding a new police chief.
Hawaiʻi Island joins Kauaʻi and Honolulu in their search for a top cop after deciding not to keep Ben Moszkowicz on as chief.
Honolulu Chief Joe Logan announced his retirement June 2, Kauaʻi’s police chief Todd Raybuck retired on June 12, and on July 10, the top cop job on Hawaiʻi island opened up after the commission decided not to accept Ben Moszkowicz’s resignation withdrawal.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever seen this many openings at one time, not in the history of this union,” said Nicholas Schlapak, SHOPO state board chair. “I think this provides us with the opportunity for some interesting powerful changes in all three counties.”
Earlier this week, Kauaʻi closed its application window for police chief and said it received 43 applicants.
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Assistant Chief Elliott Kalani Ke has taken over as interim chief, and the county said it hopes to conclude interviews by the end of the year.
On Oʻahu, the police commission chair says they haven’t put out a job posting for Chief Logan’s position because it’s not vacant yet.
Logan will retire on August 1, and the commission chose Deputy Chief Rade Vanic as interim chief.
“On Oʻahu, we need a clear, strong, decisive leader with a good, true police administrative background and a good communicator who is going to stand up and lead this department and take care of these vacancies and rebuild the morale problem,” explained Schlapak.
The commission will discuss whether to move forward with a consultant firm to recommend the next chief during its next meeting.
Finding an interim chief in Honolulu is what led to Chief Moszkowicz submitting and rescinding his resignation.
“For me, personally, I feel really bad about how this process went,” explained Rick Robinson, Hawaii County police commission chair. He said he hopes the next chief can do just as good of a job at retaining officers like Moszkowicz was able to do.
“It’s a laborious process, and you owe it to the members to serve as a police commissioner to cast the net out and find an acceptable candidate that’s good for the police force,” he added.
The next commission meeting is next week, and the eight-member commission will discuss what’s next in terms of the interim chief and full-time chief.
“We have on our agenda two things, one is our acknowledgment, because there’s a succession plan within the police department for our deputy chief Mahuna to step in and take the position pending selection of an interim chief,” Robinson explained. “And that discussion is open to our panel as well. Do we send out applicants for our interim chief or how do we want to do it? We have rules regarding that, so we’ll discuss that next week, the process by which we’re going to follow to select a new chief.
In the past, the Hawaiʻi commission had candidates fill out a questionnaire anonymously until they decided to interview their top five choices, and then narrowed it down to their final selection.
On Oʻahu, this will be the third police chief under Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who also said he wished things were handled differently with Moszkowicz.
“I think the mayor needs to have a say and a voice in who gets selected,” Blangiardi said to the media on Thursday following the Hawaiʻi County police commission hearing.
SHOPO says it won’t endorse any candidate and they want to see someone with long-term police experience and good communication skills take the job.
“We need staffing shortages filled on two of those islands, we need morale improved on all three, this is a golden opportunity for us to move forward with that respect,” Schlapak said.
Although local candidates are preferred, in the past, applicants from as far as New York have applied for the job of police chief.