The City of San Jose announced on Thursday that they are postponing the Police Chief Candidate Forum to Saturday, February 13 as they search for additional external candidates.
The move comes after two finalists withdrew from the application process leaving only five candidates in the running. Four out of the five remaining finalists are from the San Jose Police Department with only Piedmont Chief of Police Jeremy Bowers coming from an external source.
On Thursday, City Manager Dave Sykes addressed his reasoning for postponing the process in a statement to the City.
“We committed to bringing together a diverse candidate pool and a candidate pool with a mixture of internal and external perspectives,” said Skyes. “Although we have a super strong internal candidate pool, we have fallen short on establishing an external perspective to be included in the community process.
“It is important to say that I have extreme confidence in the leadership of our police department. They are fiercely dedicated to our City, our community, and our police department and we are fortunate to have them all,” he added.
The Police Chief Candidate Forum has been rescheduled to Saturday, February 13 at 10:00 a.m. The survey will stay open until February 8 so community members can continue to submit proposed questions.
For more information on the forum, click here.