Imagine a community where police officers were expected to turn on the café grill in the pre-dawn hours and ring a curfew bell at night.
These were among the memories shared by a panel of Pleasanton Police Department personnel whose years of service ran from 1950 to the present. Their reminiscences were captured as part of the oral history project of the Amador-Livermore Valley Historical Society when they came together at the Museum On Main recently before an audience of museum volunteers. The discussion was videotaped for the archives by volunteer Dave “Skip” Marell and his daughter Meghan, a student at Foothill High School.
Long before 603 Main Street was a museum, it housed the Women’s Improvement Club (whose members had the building constructed in 1914), the city council chambers and the public library. Squeezed into the front corner was the police department, in a space they shared with the city clerk.
“I joined the police department in 1950, when John Delucchi was the police chief,” said former Chief Walter McCloud. “John had been the town marshal before they made the position into chief of police. He served [as chief] for 22 years, then I served for 27.”
In those early days, there were only four members of the police department, including the chief. During the 1940s and into the 1950s, the officer on-duty had “extra” assignments, such as turning on grills at the diner that is now Dean’s Café–something McCloud put a stop to when he became police chief–and ringing a giant bell nine times, signaling to the children that it was nine o’clock and time to go home. They were also expected to help out other departments in the building.
“We had a counter across the doorway with a wooden swivel stool behind it where the on-duty officer took complaints. The city clerk sat in the back of the room, and if she was busy when someone came in to pay their water bill, we were expected to take their payment.”
McCloud still has that swivel stool today and uses it for projects, he told the audience with a laugh.
When there was only one officer on-duty, a horn and a light atop the Pleasanton Arch would summon that officer back to answer telephone calls–a horn during the day, a light at night. The original Rose Hotel, where Round Table Pizza now is located, included a bar where local pranksters late at night would see the police officer pass by, then place a call to the station just to watch him rush back. “After they did that a few times, we’d find out from the bartender who it was and put an end to it,” said McCloud.
Doris Sidwell was the police department’s first clerk, hired in 1965. She took over answering the calls and dispatching officers for both police and fire departments during her 20-year career.
“The only downfall for us in trying to do our duty was when it rained,” she said. “Then the power would go out, and we’d run around lighting candles and putting wastebaskets under the leaks in the roof. We’d have to keep pushing buttons on the telephone to see if someone was trying to call in.”
In those days, being a police clerk involved more than transcribing tape-recorded police reports and dealing with incoming calls. Sidwell also was expected to search any female prisoners and to transport them to Santa Rita Jail, Juvenile Hall or a shelter in Hayward for runaways.
“When I first started as clerk, I was very curious as to what the officers did on the streets,” said Sidwell. “I asked Chief McCloud if I could ride along on patrol.” It took several years before that request was granted, but since then it has become standard training for police clerks.
McCloud recalled with pride many other changes he brought to the local police force before he retired in 1981, including the introduction of radar, police dogs, motorcycles and female officers. Another first he can claim is hiring a reserve officer as a fulltime, sworn-in officer. Until then, reserve officers had not been considered for fulltime hire.
“I became a reserve officer in 1966, when I was 21 years old, but it took years and a lot of testing before Chief McCloud hired me onto the force in 1971,” said Jim Balch, the first reserve officer to join the regular force. He retired as a sergeant in 2002. “There used to be only six officers and about 20 reserves.” Today’s police department has grown to “over 80 sworn [officers], about 120 total,” Balch estimates.
One of Balch’s special assignments was facilities management. In what is now Museum On Main, the police department gradually took over the city council chamber, then the Women’s Improvement Club area, and finally the library space. They sprawled out into a trailer in the parking lot. In 1976 or ’77, Balch supervised moving onto land west of the parking lot, a house that had been on St. Mary’s Street where Peters Avenue was cut through. That provided more space for offices, lockers and a kitchen.
In 1982, Balch worked with the architect to help design the new police facility on Bernal Avenue, then saw it nearly doubled in size during expansion in the 1990s. Along with expanding the size of the force and facilities, Pleasanton Police Department has dramatically changed equipment. Museum On Main still has a walk-in vault from when the building was the city hall, and the former chief said that’s where some evidence was stored. It’s also where officers would load the department’s camera, feeling in the darkness for the notches on the film that had to be transferred to metal slide holders for an old press camera with flash bulbs.
Just inside the entrance to the museum, an antique switchboard is displayed. That was Angela Calija’s first workstation as PBX operator and receptionist starting in 1973. Now one of nine community services officers (and planning to retire this January), Calija grew up on a farm in northeast Pleasanton. She can remember when youth “crimes” consisted of teenagers stealing tomatoes and pumpkins from the farm, then smashing them against cars and homes. Since starting at the switchboard, her role has changed several times, going from meter maid, then onto crime prevention and other duties before she became one of the first community service officers.
Back in those days, police mostly dealt with teen pranksters and public drunkenness, but even small-town Pleasanton had its share of serious crime. Balch said his “most memorable” cases were back-to-back kidnappings in 1984. One involved an infant being snatched from the Fairgrounds, and the other a parental kidnapping. Balch was proud to have solved both cases within three months, with the children being safely returned home. McCloud, Sidwell and Balch also were involved in breaking up a drug ring in 1967, with 35 arrests being made after intensive undercover work.
For the very rare cases involving homicide, the local police used to have to turn to the county for assistance. As Calija noted, “We had fingerprint powder, a brush and a camera–that was it.”
However, what they may have lacked in equipment, the panelists agreed they more than made up for in camaraderie. “It was like a big family,” said Sidwell, “and it was a lot of fun.” The other three members of the panel nodded in agreement.
Museum collects oral history
If you know of someone who should be interviewed as part of the ongoing oral history project, please call Hilary Haugen Rizolli, education director, at 462-2766 or e-mail her at educ.valleymuseum@sbcglobal.net. Volunteers conduct and record the interviews, usually one-on-one. These become part of the museum’s archive collection, available to the public by appointment.Visit the police
The Pleasanton Police Department is hosting an open house for the public tomorrow, Saturday May 13 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at the office, 4833 Bernal Ave.
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