By Mike Gervais
Register Staff

10-11-2007

The search continues for a new top cop in Bishop.
The City of Bishop is  well into the application process involving the search for the new police chief and is now preparing to sit down and begin interviewing candidates.

Police Chief Joe Pecsi announced in July his plans to retire at the end of this year, and the city quickly entered into an agreement with hiring firm Avery & Associates to handle recruitment of a replacement chief.
The deadline for interested individuals to apply for the position closed on Aug. 29, and according to Avery, there are plenty of worthy applicants.
“We will have a final list of applicants in a couple weeks,” but the representative from Avery who is handling the recruitment process “is still doing his interviews” and background checks, said Assistant City Clerk Denise Gillespie. “Interviews with the candidates are scheduled for the first part of November.”
Avery & Associates has a representative appointed to review the applications that come in for police chief. That individual is wrapping up that aspect of the search has begun to narrow the applicants down to about 20 interested cops.
From there he will select a handful of applicants to personally interview, narrowing the pool of hopefuls down to between eight and 12 of the most qualified.
From there the remaining candidates will undergo a background check, via Avery & Associates, before being interviewed by the Bishop City Council.
Bishop City Administrator Rick Pucci and the council will interview the candidates and make the final decision of who will be police chief at the end of the year.
The cost for Avery & Associates’ services is a flat fee of $14,000 with expenses not to exceed $7,000.
The expenses included in Avery’s price tag include the cost for the hiring firm to interview and do background checks.
Avery charges the $7,000 in expenses to accommodate the firm for travel and other costs it may incur as it does its preliminary background checks.

The $7,000 price tag covers costs for the representative from Avery to travel to and meet with candidates, where he will conduct interviews and background checks, even going so far as to speak directly with past employers and neighbors.
Last time Avery & Associates was tapped to recruit a new police chief, in 2002 when Pecsi was eventually hired, the firm had to sift through more than 70 applications before narrowing the field to three top candidates.
Among them were a police officer from Baldwin Park, the then-lieutenant at Bishop PD and Pecsi, who was working in Sacramento for the Department of Fish and Game.
Pecsi started out in the Fullerton Police Department in 1974, leaving to serve on the Bishop force in 1978. He departed in 1985 to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a warden with the Department of Fish and Game, staying with the DFG for 17 years – during which time he rose to the rank of captain – until he applied for the chief of police post in Bishop.
Beginning next month, Avery will have its representative interview up to 20 candidates for the police chief position, and bring a handful of them back to the Bishop City Council, which will conduct its own interviews with the applicants.
The number of applicants the Avery representative presents to the council depends on the number of qualified applicants who apply for the position, said Gillespie.
Recruiting applicants from across the country does not rule out the possibility that a current Bishop police officer or other local law enforcement officer could be awarded the position as was the case two years ago when the city advertised nationally for a Public Works director, through Avery, and hired local resident Dave Grah.