Last week, in the hours leading up to a City Council meeting with no feature attraction on the agenda, a rumor percolated through the Springfield Police Department that Mayor Tim Davlin would announce his pick for police chief that night. This rumor was so persistent that then-Sergeant Don Kliment found himself feeling downright dejected.
"The mayor isn't going to make that kind of announcement without his guy standing up there by him," Kliment reasoned. "I haven't been invited to council. Therefore it's not me."
A reminder that the job of chief was guaranteed to be an overwhelming, time-devouring, thankless burden for whatever poor schlub got the mayor's nod was no comfort.
"I know all the problems facing the department," Kliment said. "But I really thought if I could be chief, I could do some good."
The rumor, of course, proved patently false, as did Kliment's hunch that he would not be chosen. In what Davlin called "one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life," he selected Kliment to be Springfield's new police chief.
Kliment--who was, up until his selection, better known as the president of the police union--takes over a department plagued by leaks, low morale, political maneuvering, rumors, and scandals. He replaces John Harris, who was appointed in 1995 and resigned April 15. A recent investigation by a Peoria law firm described Harris as "lacking in objectivity" and "vindictive."
Davlin announced Kliment's promotion Monday morning in a City Council chamber packed with SPD employees. The reaction was a prolonged standing ovation.
"The guys are ecstatic," says SPD Officer Bob Markovic. "One comment I've heard is that this doesn't happen very often. Maybe once in your career, once in a lifetime, you get to work for a chief like Don Kliment."
An eight-year veteran of the force, Markovic was vice president of the Policemen's Benevolent and Protective Agency Unit 5 until Kliment's first official day as chief on Tuesday, June 24. That morning, Markovic took over the small dingy union office in the basement, while Kliment moved up to the spacious quarters designated for the chief on the third floor.
"What's great about Don is his integrity, his leadership ability, and the way that he manages," Markovic says. "He's fair and consistent. He doesn't play games. He accepts responsibility for his actions, and that's something we haven't had down here for the last eight years. That's why the guys are excited."
Sergeant Ron Vose--an outspoken critic of Harris as well as a close personal friend of Kliment's--echoed the union's 1998 no-confidence vote against Harris in his assessment of the new chief's impact on morale: "Whereas Harris had about 90 percent of the officers against him, Don has the opposite--he has at least 90 percent of the officers supporting him. In a lot of ways, he's the polar opposite of Harris."
Where Harris was an outsider (from Tucson, Arizona), Kliment has spent his entire 23-year career here. Where Harris rose rapidly up the ranks, Kliment has twice chosen not to take the tests that could have promoted him to lieutenant, because getting promoted would have meant he'd have to abandon the union. And where Harris seemed comfortable speaking in public, Kliment lacks the polished charm Harris brought to the position.
At Monday's press conference, he thanked the mayor for his confidence, the selection committee for their work, and concluded, a little shakily, "Other than that, I'm really nervous." He had cogent answers for every question the media threw at him, but delivered each phrase through a slightly clinched jaw that makes him sound like he's holding a toothpick clutched in his teeth.
Ward 7 Alderman Judy Yeager likes that slightly awkward quality in Kliment.
"What that shows is he isn't slick. We don't need a person in that capacity being slick. We've had slick," Yeager says. "We've been slicked out."
Yeager has been quoted in the daily media as questioning Davlin's selection of Kliment, specifically his commitment to the concept of a citizen police review board. But she has since reexamined the document that prompted her concern--a brief letter sent to aldermen by the union last winter, reminding them that the collective bargaining agreement required their input on any potential board.
"It was a totally different spin than what I remember," Yeager says. "My memory of it was more of a broad stroke than what they actually said."
Months ago, before there was an opening for the chief's job, Kliment participated in talks about a review board with the mayor's Task Force on Race Relations. "The [Renatta] Frazier investigation changed things," Kliment says, referring to one of the major scandals of Harris's tenure, in which the department leaked erroneous accusations against a rookie cop and allowed the media to run with the story for almost a year. "We just want to be able to work with a review board so it's not an adversarial thing."
Yeager had also questioned Kliment's relationship with the Black Guardians, a group of black officers and former officers (including Frazier), many of whom are plaintiffs in a race discrimination lawsuit against the city. But these same officers have solidly endorsed Kliment as chief.
Rickey Davis, one of the most outspoken Guardians, says he came to know and respect Kliment when they worked together as partners assigned to the public housing projects two decades ago.
"We went through a lot together," Davis says. "And ever since then, I've never known Don to be dishonest." Several other Guardians have worked directly with Kliment over the years. Davis's group let the selection committee know they supported Kliment's candidacy, even with black candidates (from outside the department) also under consideration. Yeager recognized this support when she saw Davis stand and applaud Kliment during the press conference announcing his selection.
"I was absolutely shocked when I saw that," Yeager says. "I never would've suspected that kind of support. I guess a lot has to do with the personality of an individual. I guess they felt if they had a ghost of a chance with anybody this was the guy who is true blue and going to give everybody a fair shake regardless of skin color."
The City Council is scheduled to vote on Davlin's choice for chief on July 15. It appears Kliment will be confirmed.
The new chief spent the remainder of last Monday trading in his sergeant's equipment--a rifle, a bean bag gun, and his squad car--for his "issue brass": stars, new badges, uniform shirts, and the blue Ford Taurus formerly driven by Jim Cimarossa, who recently retired as assistant chief. He also had brief meetings with his secretary and with the mayor, plus lunch at Fulgenzi's with a group of friends that included a lieutenant, a sergeant, and a patrolman. By 4:30, he went home--"It was my day off," he says--only to find scores of congratulatory messages on his voice mail, e-mail, and his pager. "I was overwhelmed by the support," he says.
On Tuesday, he showed up at the 6:30 a.m. squad meeting and received another standing ovation. These were the officers he had supervised as a street sergeant just days earlier. Greeting them as chief was, he says, "very emotional." They got to hear the first rendition of the speech he had composed in his head "when I was staring at the ceiling" at 3 a.m., he says.
"I told them that my success as chief of police will rest on how well they do their jobs, on how well they serve the public, and how well they treat the public," he says. "I told them we're in for a very serious budget crisis, and this is going to take a lot of hard work on everybody's part. And I told them I was serious when I said I would be a good listener and a good communicator, and I hope they feel the same way about me in six months as they did this morning."
He returned to his office for an interview with a TV reporter, followed by a funeral, another interview, and more meetings. At the 2:30 squad meeting, he got warm applause and delivered his "same cheesy speech" again. Then he was off to more meetings and another funeral. He never found time to eat lunch or to pay the parking ticket his wife Kim had received the previous day after underestimating how long the press conference would take.
"I keep telling him he has 10 days to pay, but he wants to take care of it right away," Kim says.
A former SPD officer herself, Kim admits that she wasn't crazy about the idea of her husband applying to be chief until she thought about his eight-year tenure as head of the union. "It can't be any more stress than that," Kim says. "And besides, if you raise the morale down there, all these other things will fall into place. I'm happy for Don, but I'm probably more happy for the people down at the department, that things are going to change. You wouldn't believe the messages left on our answering machine--the actual joy in their voices."
Kliment knows all the ways a chief can sink himself. As commander of SPD's internal affairs division from 1988 to 1994, he had the duty to investigate two chiefs involved in sexual misconduct scandals (both ultimately resigned and rejoined the force as sergeants). Former chief Mike Walton, though, has nothing but praise for Kliment.
"I think he was an outstanding choice, and I even sent the mayor a little note saying so," Walton says, "I recognized Don's potential when I was chief and put him in charge of internal affairs. I knew with Don we'd have some real integrity in there."
Kliment feels he can avoid the type of scandals that shortened the careers of some former chiefs. "The only trap I could fall in would be if I changed," he says. "I would hope my friends and family would come forward and let me know I'd become a different person.
"I understand that this job can be overwhelming at times. It's very stressful. But I'm not afraid to work hard and work through these problems."
After all, this is what he wanted: the chance to "do some good."
