Salinas restarts police chief search and has a candidate for city manager.

Over the past year, the city of Salinas has lost several people from key leadership positions, including the finance director, city manager, airport director and lastly, the chief of police.

Salinas is making progress to fill those seats and on Feb. 20 the City Council announced it had relaunched the process for one of them: the chief of police.

Kelly McMillin, former police chief of Salinas, told officials that appointing a chief is a crucial decision, and in this case has been flawed.

“This current selection process is occuring almost entirely out of the public eye. It seems to contradict the principles of open government and transparency,” McMillin said.

Open Vallejo, a non profit news outlet in the Bay Area, reported on Feb.12 that interim Vallejo Police Chief Jason Ta was resigning to accept the police chief position in Salinas.

City officials confirmed there was a potential candidate, but didn’t confirm or deny if it was Ta for confidentiality reasons.

“I’d like to see someone wihin our department. We have qualified officers to step up,” says Gloria De La Rosa, a former councilmember.

On a cloudy Saturday morning, Feb. 17, the council made progress toward filling the city manager seat, interviewing several candidates for the position left vacant by the firing of Steve Carrigan on Oct. 4, 2023.

On Feb. 20 Mayor Kimbley Craig announced the council had selected a candidate and the city is working on the contract.

Residents felt the special meeting on Saturday was rushed and that few people were aware of it. “They need to find a better way to notify their people, each district needs to let their people know, ‘hey, we’re having a meeting, come join us.’ But they’re not doing it,” Victor Cervantes says, underlining public frustration with proceedings.

Cervantes, who worked closely with Carrigan to overturn the city’s cruising ban, says staff and the council should work together for Salinas. “I’m not a proud resident of Salinas,” Cervantes says.” Salinas is upside down and we need to change that.”

While city manager in Salinas, Carrigan had announced that he was a finalist for the same position in San Bernardino. He later sent an email to city staff and the council stating he dropped out from the process.

“We are losing people right now,” says De La Rosa. “Why are people leaving in such a big turnover? Because we have no leadership.”

The story has been updated. A previous version misstated former council member De La Rosa's name. Her name is Gloria, not Claudia.