It's official. There is, for the first time in recent memory, a new CPD Superintendant who is an "outsider". A former fed, as it were, non Chicagoan, to lead a department beset by several scandals, bad apples (a few, not all by any means), and tons of bad press over the past few years.

But Blogmaster digresses. For OEMC, the real issue about the appointment is two fold: how will the new Super treat the OEMC dispatch operations (like an unwanted but necessary minor league bit partner ala the current and immediate former Superintendants who mostly ignored OEMC) and what does his new role over "emergency management/homeland security" mean for the OEMC? Mostly, former supers just ignored OEMC, but those in the know know that is not the most prudent course of action in the long run, even if OEMC is no longer directly accountable to the CPD.

Were Blogmaster asked, we could advise the new super about a police dispatch center which is severely understaffed, operates on occasional mandatory overtime and unhealthy amounts of voluntary overtime, and accepts a lack of training and equipment for its 911 calltakers and dispatchers as "an unfortunate reality of the present political climate" (ie, read NO MONEY). These factors, coupled with low morale and other shortcomings (no leadership, poor use of existing resources, etc) directly affect officer safety and test public confidence in the entire public safety structure of the city. These are the things which OEMC's OWN executive director(s) have either failed to appreciate or take action upon.

Were Blogmaster advising the new super, we could further expound upon the city's amorphous and vague concept of "homeland security" and "emergency management" which provides its citizens with neither, if the definition of said phrases means that its front line workers (911 calltakers and dispatchers) are prepared to handle field events which include recognizing cluster occurences, multiple man mande catastrophes, terrorist attacks on city soil, or the occasional large scale evacuations or other mass incidents.

Blogmaster has no axe to grind with CPD and in general, we are very, very supportive of our brothers and sisters in the field. We know that the new super has his hands full already taking on CPD, especially if mass exodus in the upper ranks of CPD occurs when he takes his post. But these issues are so critical and so important that he ignores them at his own peril. Just the same, we wish him well.