Update: On Monday, Feb. 28, the Seal Beach City Council decided that the new chief of police will be selected by the new city manager. The news came the same week that the public learned that Interim City Manager Patrick Importuna had resigned.
As sunnews.org reported last week at 6:50 p.m., Friday, Feb. 25, Jeff Kirkpatrick announced his plans to retire as chief the Seal Beach Police Department this year. Assistant City Manager Jill Ingram said the city received notice of Kirkpatrick’s retirement plans Friday, Feb. 25.
Kirkpatrick declined to comment until after the Feb. 28 council meeting. The Seal Beach Police Department issued a press release announcing his retirement on Tuesday, March 1.
Kirkpatrick will step down in June.
Seal Beach resident Marc Loopesko has already launched an e-mail campaign to have Capt. Tim Olson, second in command of the SBPD, to be the next chief of police. Loopesko apparently began spreading the electronic word at about 9:19 a.m., Friday, Feb. 25.
The authority to hire or fire a police chief rests with the city manager.
Kirkpatrick has been chief of police since April 2005, according to his resume, which is posted at LinkedIn.com.
He was a captain in the La Palma Police Department, having served from December 1977 to April 2005.
He graduated magna cum laud with a bachelor of science degree in organizational behavior from the University of San Francisco 1996. He received his master of arts in negotiation and conflict resolution in 1999 from Cal State University, Dominguez Hills.
In 2000, Kirkpatrick received a certificate in police management from the FBI National Academy at the University of Virginia.
