We sit down with Interim Pleasanton Police Chief Gina Anderson

As a Pleasanton resident and longtime law enforcement leader, Interim Police Chief Gina Anderson said she knew she had to answer the call to action when she heard the city's chief was leaving earlier this year.

What she didn't know is how much she would come to love the job over the last few months and how difficult it would be for her if Pleasanton found a permanent replacement.

“I think the Pleasanton Police Department is great,” Anderson said during a Sept. 19 sit-down interview. “I didn't know how quickly I would enjoy working with the people of Pleasanton … so it's going to be difficult when. “I'm leaving, but I'm going.”

Anderson told the Weekly that she is doing everything in her power to ensure things run smoothly and ensure the next inductee has an easy transition.

Anderson, a career police officer, said she knew from a young age that she wanted to go into law enforcement.

Anderson was born in Santa Clara and said she was exposed to police work from an early age. Her father was a police officer when she was growing up, which meant she was always interested in things like doing scientifically fair fingerprint analysis projects and determining the speed of cars from skid marks.

Her father also retired as police chief, which she said made them the first father-daughter-police chief combination in the state's history.

Anderson said police officers are the ones who respond to some of the worst moments in a person's life, which is why, after 30 years in the profession, she recognizes how police can change a community one person at a time.

“If you positively influence one person every day throughout their career, you can really have an amazing impact,” she said.

Anderson began her law enforcement career in 1992 as a community service officer with the City of Davis. She was sworn in as an officer the following year and promoted to sergeant in 2002.

As she grew up, she began to realize that police work was a way to serve her community in a positive way.

During this time, she began to think about becoming a civil servant, which is why she decided to study law to become a prosecutor. She graduated with a Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

But then she realized that those who really have a more direct impact on the community are first responders like police officers.

“You’re the first person on the scene,” Anderson said. “You can have the greatest impact on changing someone’s life.”

In 2006, Anderson joined the Citrus Heights Police Department as a lieutenant before being promoted to police commander in 2013 and deputy chief in 2018. She saw that Newark needed a new police chief.

Then in April 2020, Anderson was named police chief of the Newark Police Department, which also meant she had to move her family from Sacramento – and decided to move to Pleasanton.

Her grandparents had lived in Pleasanton, so she knew the schools had a good reputation, crime was very low, and the overall community was great, which is why she decided to move there.

When she retired from her position in Newark and learned that then-Pleasanton Chief David Swing would be leaving the department in March to take his new job as executive director at the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority, Anderson decided to move up .

“I thought I was here, this was my chance to serve the community I live in,” she said.

She said she has adjusted to the job easily over the past few months, largely because the community has been very welcoming to her and the department has been eager to learn and open to new ideas.

One of the main issues Anderson focused on during her time at PPD was hiring and recruiting new officers, which she said continues to be a challenge not only for Pleasanton, but for the entire profession.

“It's really challenging to find good, qualified candidates who are willing to do the job, have a passion for helping people and can complete all steps of the hiring process,” she said.

However, she and her hiring team continue to work to find the right people for Pleasanton.

She said this is important to her, especially because she has worked in different departments and knows how different policing is in different cities. She knows that expectations of police departments are different in every community, which is why an officer's “policing style,” as she put it, is very important to Anderson.

She said it's important to balance an officer's expectations for their career with the values ​​of a city's community and its expectations for how residents want to be policed.

“If you can bring those together and align them well, the employee will be happy in their career and the city will be very happy with the services provided to them,” she said.

Anderson also said that while there has been a shift in recent years with people not wanting to pursue a career in law enforcement, she believes those views were more pronounced four years ago. Now she believes that's changing primarily because there are more people who want to be part of the change in police departments.

And she said it's not just young people who want to make that change – they're also seeing people giving up other careers to become police officers because they want to improve relations between police and their communities.

She said PPD is near capacity, which is actually “pretty fortunate compared to some of our neighboring jurisdictions.”

As for crime in Pleasanton, she said that while there has been something of an anomaly in crime in Pleasanton in recent years, crime statistics tell a different story.

Anderson said the number of robberies in the city is down this year compared to last year. She also said violent crime was down 43% and property crime was down 34% this year compared to the city's three-year average.

She said violent crime increased in 2021 and decreased in 2022. So when the city experienced murders like the death of Blake Mohs at Home Depot in April 2023 and the fatal stabbing of Edevion White the next month, it appeared that violent crime had increased significantly.

However, she said the number of violent crimes was still lower last year compared to 2021, so she doesn't believe these two murders last year show any consistent patterns of Pleasanton becoming a violent community.

“We’re doing pretty well and the fact that we’re almost at capacity contributes to that,” Anderson said.

She said hiring more staff helps because it allows positions and units to be redeployed that had to be disbanded last year due to staffing shortages. As examples, she cited assigning an additional resource officer to the school district so that every high school has one and fully staffing the department's investigative unit.

She also said the department's backup response unit, which responds to people suffering from mental health crises, was back at full staff and that they had also brought back a person from the traffic unit. She said as more recruits complete training, they will begin deploying those new officers to fully staff that unit as well.

“It took a lot of work to get here,” she said, praising human resources and everyone else in the city who was involved in the hiring process.

Although she said she enjoyed her time working in the department, she said the goal when she first started the job was to not come out of retirement, which is why she is not competing for the permanent position.

Anderson currently has a cap on how many hours she can work without jeopardizing her retirement benefits. Although it will be difficult to leave, she plans to do so once the city finds its next permanent police chief.

But before she leaves, she said she will do everything in her power to ensure the transition goes as smoothly as possible for the new boss. Because of that, she said she spent a lot of time gathering information that would help whoever takes over so the new boss doesn't have to take the time to learn the ins and outs of the organization.

“I can help give them an overview of where the different units and programs are today so they can be operational and effective as quickly as possible,” Anderson said.

Pleasanton communications manager Heather Tiernan told the Weekly that the city is still working on selecting diverse candidates and that while the recruiting process is still early, the goal is to hire someone sooner rather than later.

“When the new boss arrives, they're going to have a really talented community and staff, so I'll give them my best assessment of the organization, but there's certainly talent in the rest of the organization and … a willingness to help the new boss.” be successful,” Anderson added.

As for her plans after her transitional service, she said she can't imagine not being involved in police work in some way – she just doesn't know what that will look like now. Although something that involves having an unbiased view of internal issues was an idea she dismissed.