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.