There’s a paragraph from the Whitewater city manager’s Weekly Report for March 5, 2010 that reveals all one needs to know about how these two gentlemen view community outreach.

Here’s the paragraph:

City and UWW Police Departments Hold Community Forum

On Tuesday of this week, Officer Saul Valadez and Chief Jim Coan participated in a community forum on the UW -Whitewater campus to discuss police-minority student relations. UW-Whitewater Police Chief Kiederlen and one of his officers participated as well. A student panel and audience of African-American and Latino students asked questions about police procedures. The Forum was moderated by Rick Daniels of the UW-Whitewater Career and Leadership Development Office. Chief Coan commented that he believed “we were able to clarify some misunderstandings concerning police procedures and practices. I thought that it was a very positive and productive meeting and went a long way toward building a better atmosphere of trust and understanding.”

One could not have picked a more telling quote — this is the condescending idea of community outreach as correcting others’ mistakes and errors. Such is what passes for a postive meeting. He went, he dispelled, he conquered. A genuinely positive experience comes from listening to community concerns, but that sometimes means admitting official mistakes.

Coan’s a police chief so rigid — and so deeply confused about what real community outreach means — that he probably thinks that meeting with ordinary people, and correcting them, makes him seem generous and giving of his time. Brunner’s a city manager so expecting of deference to authority that he probably thinks a quote like this shows Coan in a good light.

There’s nothing about what Coan might have learned, how he might develop better practices, or find ways to improve — as though, perhaps, he thinks no improvement could possibly be necessary.

There’s an arrogant cluelessness to these gentlemen. They live in a small town, and should be close to their constituents, but they’re as far from common thinking as any detached and aloof big city leader could ever be.

One sees that Whitewater’s police chief, Jim Coan, wasn’t hired for the public safety director’s job in Mankato, Minnesota.

Coan faced an uncertain field, and even then, he wasn’t hired. One candidate dropped out, one candidate wasn’t even currently working, and the third rival Coan faced wasn’t even a police officer. Coan sought a position that combined police and fire-fighting oversight, and his nearly twenty years of supposed leadership weren’t enough to best someone not an officer. (That’s no criticism of the fire-fighter — he served ably for many years. Yet, Coan’s supposedly amazing career offered no dispositive advantage.)

In the print press from Mankato (but sadly not online), one learns that among the community panel evaluating the candidates, a majority scored Coan last, the fourth of four. (The majority picked the candidate that Mankato finally chose, as did citizen-attendees from the meeting who completed a survey asking for their preferences.) There’s no surprise in this. One could have guessed as much, and there were clues in the coverage of the hiring process that pointed to the unlikelihood of Coan getting the job.

Credit where credit is due — Mankato proved wiser than Whitewater was in 2006, when Coan came scurrying back, hat in hand, from Hudson. Mankato avoided our mistakes, and we should be happy for them that they were not so foolish as we have been.

Coan never should have served, never should have led, never should have been re-hired. Those public officials who have defended him have done so ridiculously and wrongly. They have wrongly conflated the needs of one mediocre leader with the needs of dedicated field officers. Coan isn’t the essence policing in Whitewater — not a bit more than a papier mache animal is a living creature. Too many officials propped up a mess, and in doing so, they have allowed problems to fester, simply by looking away. They are to blame for failing to correct Coan properly for his many transgressions. An obstinate few have made themselves ridiculous to those who believe truly in the fairness and decency of America’s promise for all people.

Coan’s made a mess of his career, at Whitewater’s expense. His recent interview with the Mankato Free Press shows he’s not changed, reformed, or acknowledged his many mistakes. There was little chance any other people, in sensible communities, would be foolish enough actually to hire him.

He remains with us. Coan won’t become a better leader; he’ll likely become a worse one.

Whitewater, like every community in America, deserves real accountability, real community policing, genuine fairness, and a good police leader.

Whitewater will not have good leadership until it stops pretending that it does, or insisting that honest people look away from mediocrity.

No one owes Whitewater’s town fathers a life of lies and delusions.

There’s much good work to be done, and we are just the city where it needs to be done.

I am convinced that there is no better place in the world, in any time in history, than America. Whitewater will always be at her best when she draws closer to the free, honest, open American tradition.

The more here, the better.

From the Mankato Free Press story:

MANKATO — Todd Miller, an experienced police chief who most recently served in Texas, will be Mankato’s next director of public safety….

Miller will be replacing Jerry Huettl, who is retiring after more than 28 years with the city.

Mankato City Manager Pat Hentges, who chose the new director, said in a news release he was impressed with Miller’s strong endorsement from past and current co-workers. Community representatives, city employees and elected officials also had “an overwhelmingly positive” reaction to Miller.

See, Miller Chosen as New Public Safety Director.