After a year of interim chiefs, the Salinas Police Department finally has a new chief of police. His name is Carlos Acosta, 51, a long-time San Jose police officer who was in charge of the bureau of investigations.
Acosta’s first day was on Nov. 29, and is now the third Salinas police chief in less than four years. He will fill the role left vacant by Roberto Filice, who resigned in January to take over as assistant general manager of public safety and police chief at East Bay Regional Park District.
Acosta was hired after Salinas conducted a second round of searching for the next chief. The first search came under fire, when residents and former police officers said there was a lack of transparency in the process.
In February, Salinas had several top vacant positions; including chief of police and city manager.
In March, René Mendez was hired as the city manager, and one of his priorities was hiring the new chief. Despite the community expressing interest in having the next chief be local, he selected a chief from San Jose.
“I selected Chief Acosta because of his demonstrated leadership and values that are centered around service to his community,” Mendez said during the Dec. 2 press conference.
Acosta’s priorities include creating partnerships with the community, building Salinas PD's workforce and investing in training and development for police officers.
Victor Cervantes, president of The Street Life Car Club, was in support of hiring from within (he was a supporter of John Murray, a Salinas PD veteran who held the acting chief role for a number of months).
“He wants to come in here and work together with the community and I think that's the best thing that he can do,” Cervantes says. “At the end of the day, one of the things I like about [what he said] is that it's for our kids, our grandkids, so we're building the city for our kids and our grandkids.”
Like police departments across the country, Salinas PD is struggling with retaining officers, who leave for nearby agencies that offer better pay. Currently the city has 133 sworn police officers and has 31 vacancies.
“I spent 26 years in the 10th largest police department in the country, and there's a lot of similarities of some of the agencies or areas that I worked in where they sort of mirror a lot of the things that happen in this city,” Acosta says. “We have staffing concerns, but the community is the most important thing, that as long as we build partnerships, we can start that foundation of what we can do collectively together to really create vibrancy, safety in a more prosperous city and community here in Salinas.”
Commander Brian Johnson says the department welcomes the stability of having a chief after one year of interims. He says they are working to retain current police officers.
“I think Chief Acosta will help retain people, and we'll be able to build on that,” Johnson adds.
This year, Salinas PD has removed over 200 firearms from the streets and homicides went down from 11 in 2022 to six in 2023.
According to the job listing, the chief of police position was advertised as having an annual salary of $185,112 to $236,256, plus benefits.