DATE: Monday, August 4, 1997                TAG: 9708010017

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   42 lines

PORTSMOUTH POLICE CITIZENS TO HELP PICK CHIEF

Portsmouth City Manager Ronald W. Massie has appointed four citizens to help in the search for a new police chief. Good for him.

The citizens will help draw a profile of the ideal police chief for Portsmouth and interview top candidates.

Under Massie and the former police chief, Dennis A. Mook, Portsmouth seemed to recruit the entire city for the fight against crime. Annual citywide citizen summits were held to discuss ways to reduce crime. Mook assigned police full time to individual neighborhoods, so the officers and residents could improve them. Citizens, police and various city departments cooperated in removing or cleaning up spots where crime festered, such as vacant houses or trashy lots.

It is no overstatement that crime-fighting in Portsmouth became a community activity, and successes were many. After 13 consecutive years on the rise, violent crime dropped 29 percent in 1996.

So it's no surprise that citizens, having helped turn the tide against crime, would be involved in picking Mook's replacement.

In choosing the four citizens, Massie sought and achieved ethnic, gender and geographic balance. The city of about 100,000 is roughly half black, half white; half male, half female. Massie named two white males and two black females to the panel. Their homes are in different parts of the city. All have been active in civic affairs.

The four citizens are expected to seek advice from other citizens in their neighborhoods during the selection process.

``My hope,'' said Massie, ``is it's going to be a very open process.''

One of the citizens is Reggie Allen, longtime president of the Brighton-Prentis Park Civic League and coordinator of a neighborhood patrol for the past five years. He wants to see community-policing programs continued.

In fact, it's a safe bet that only applicants who believe in community involvement have a chance for the job.

Portsmouth tried neighborhood involvement, it worked, and residents want more of the same. Why wouldn't they?

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