Recent legislative changes to the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act [
Government Code Section 3304(c)] provides for some limited protection for Police Chiefs. Prior to the law change, Police Chiefs received the same protection as probationary officers when their City Manager or City Council terminated them. The "Bill or Rights" was modified to require a police chief to receive notice of the reasons of his/her termination and an opportunity for administrative appeal. That is the good part. The bad part is that under the new law, a change of administration or incompatibility of management styles is sufficient reason to terminate a police chief.I expect that in the future, most Police Chiefs will be terminated for "incompatibility of management styles", which would trigger a very short appeal hearing. However, if the Chief could demonstrate that the stated reasons were merely a pretext, he/she may be able to prevent a termination if the actual reasons could not be supported by a preponderance of evidence.
Ironically, the modification to Govt. Code ¤ 3304 also eliminated all rights for administrative appeal to probationary officers. This was a good piece of lobbying by the Police Chiefs' groups.