S
ome might say that the stars were in perfect alignment when Police Chief Mike Fraser and Fire Chief Bill Cody first met. They found themselves together as participants at the 2005-06 annual Pleasanton Leadership class, an intensive nine-month program sponsored by the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce and the city of Pleasanton to give public, civic and business leaders an in-depth look at what makes this city work. Seated together, they became good friends–a personal and professional relationship that continues today.
At that September meeting, Cody, a 28-year fire department veteran had just been sworn in at the new chief of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department in June. He had served 25 years as a firefighter and officer with the Los Angeles Fire Department before retiring, and then for three years as assistant fire chief in Newark. Here, he succeeded Fire Chief Stewart Gary, who retired after 13 years of service.
Fraser, a 26-year police veteran, was a captain in the department when he joined Leadership and met Cody. He was named police chief early this year when Chief Tim Neal retired.
It wasn’t long before Cody and Fraser found they had much in common. Both came from families that had experience in the work they now do, and both planned careers while in high school and college far afield from firefighting and police.
Cody’s father Joseph had been a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department for years. Still, Bill Cody, a star high school athlete, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physical education and planned to teach. The problem was that in the 1970s, there was a glut of teachers in Southern California. Cody shopped around for different jobs, taking one with the Chevron refinery in El Segundo. Assigned to the fire brigade, he liked the challenge and started taking tests at various municipal fire departments up and down the South Coast before Los Angeles hired him.
Police Chief Mike Fraser
Fraser’s uncle had been a lieutenant with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, but he was more interested in chemistry and math. He recalls mixing up bathes of pesticides and weed killers in his parents’ kitchen, only to find that his ingredients killed all the grass, not just the bugs and weeds.
There was no CSI television show at the time, but it’s that kind of crime lab and forensic work that Fraser wanted to pursue. Criminal law and administration were the closest courses Chabot College offered when he started college, moving on for a degree in public administration at the University of San Francisco and later a master’s degree in management from Cal Poly Pomona. Police work seems the logical way to combine all of these interests, which led to Fraser signing on with the Pleasanton Police Department in 1980.
When Fraser joined the force, the police department was still on Main Street in the building the Museum On Main now occupies. Stoneridge Mall was being built, Hacienda Business Park was in the planning stage and the homes in Vintage Hills had recently been completed.
“Even then, though, the 29 of us who were on the police force were told that traffic was the No. 1 concern in Pleasanton and patrolling the streets would be our prime responsibility,” Fraser said. “So while almost everything else in Pleasanton has changed over these past 27 years, that hasn’t. It’s still traffic, traffic, traffic.”
As more people moved to Pleasanton, increasing the populations from about 20,000 when Fraser started to about 67,000 now, police work also expanded to keep pace with new concerns. While red light runners and speeders, particularly in residential neighborhoods, are ongoing problems, police today also deal with more crime, including drugs, gangs, armed robberies, burglaries and even homicides. Fortunately, no Pleasanton officer has ever been killed in the line of duty, but several have been shot at and injured.
“Although we really don’t have organized gangs in town, there are gang members here, and we watch them,” Fraser said. “It’s sad to sometimes find a parent who moves a child here to escape the gangs they faced in other cities only to find those ‘friends’ following the child here. We work with parents to let their uninvited visitors know that they’re not welcome here.”
Speeding motorists are also on the increase, Fraser said, mostly because the city has so much cut-through traffic. Sure, some of those caught speeding live here or work here, but a growing number are rushing through town to bypass congestion on I-580, particularly in the evening rush hour. Fraser has toughened enforcement by placing more cops in squad cars and on motorcycles with radar guns and has also cut the number of courtesy citations that police have liberally given in the past.
“It makes no sense to give a pass to a motorist who just got one a week or so ago,” Fraser said. “A real ticket makes the penalty real.”
Rush hour patrols and more citations have reduced the mid-intersection congestion that not long ago frequently tied up traffic in all directions at the busy Bernal-First Street-Sunol Boulevard intersection. The same intensified patrols are now watching the Santa Rita Road and Valley Avenue intersection, considered one of the most dangerous in Pleasanton.
But Fraser is opposed to the so-called red-light cameras other cities are using, such as Fremont. Some now combine those with speed detection radar cameras. Both are designed to free up police while catching traffic violators.
“Cities use them in many states, but I like the hands-on approach we have,” Fraser said. “If a motorist shows remorse and that he clearly thought he still had the green light, we might give him a pass. A red-light camera doesn’t.”
The red-light cameras also are not labor free. Fraser said cities that use them must hire aides to carefully look at the photographs, make sure they are clear enough to pass court muster, and then police officers have to be in court more often because of the increased frequency that camera-issued tickets are challenged.
Next to speeding motorists, drug use is the fastest growing problem in Pleasanton.
“While we don’t see the crack houses in Pleasanton or drug dealers standing on the corner to make a sale, drugs are here and available,” he said. “In fact, marijuana is coming back in fashion. It’s something we all need to be aware of.”
“Even if someone just uses drugs at home out of sight from the public,” he explained, “there’s always that one time when the user needs to drive down to the store. He’s endangering all of us and we can’t let that happen.”
Although Fraser has put more police on the roads, the department is still understaffed. Of the 88 sworn officers now on the force, not all are on duty. Three officers are in a training program, two others are away at a police academy training program and Fraser has three openings. Continued recruitment is also necessary because a number of officers are expected to retire soon. At age 50, with 30 years of service anywhere in the state, police officers can retire.
“In my interviews with potential officers, I sometimes run into candidates who might want more excitement,” Fraser said. “I know several who have opted for job offers in Oakland or Richmond because of the challenge of working there.”
“So when I’m interviewing someone, I’m frank,” he added. “If they are turned off by having to check on someone’s barking dog or ticket a car parked on the wrong side of the street, then they’re not for Pleasanton. Here we are part of the community we serve, we participate in activities and on the sports fields. We’ll wave back and smile to the many people who do the same because they’re happy to see a strong police presence in our city.”
“To those who think police work sometimes lacks excitement, I always tell them that working for the Pleasanton P.D. has one big advantage,” he added. “You’ll likely walk home to your family each night. Cops in the more dangerous cities can’t always be sure of that.”
Fire Chief Bill Cody
Bill Cody, who became chief of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department two years ago, commands 131 firefighters and administrators who serve nearly 150,000 residents. It’s a closer knit department after a merger of two very loyal city fire departments that occasionally saw a reluctance to give up their identities. Today, fire administrators and retirees more often lament that the LPFD might be even stronger and more effective had Dublin joined in, as it was asked to do. Fire departments are often are on the front line of greater Tri-Valley and regional fires, and it’s Cody’s job to work with Police Chief Fraser to make sure Pleasanton backups are in place if part of his department is sent elsewhere.
As it is, Cody meets frequently with Fraser and with Livermore police to coordinate coverage of care, ranging from having paramedics at the scene of heart attack or stroke victims within minutes to blocking traffic so that fire vehicles can move quickly to fires here and in the Tri-Valley as needed.
Cody came well prepared for his new role as a first responder for any disasters affecting Pleasanton and Livermore. These can range from fires in the hills to earthquakes and even to flooding. As a battalion chief in Los Angeles, he was part of a 3,500-firefighter force with 10 fire stations. Besides the skyscrapers in downtown Los Angles and several outlying business districts, Cody’s responsibilities included two airports, a harbor and hundreds of miles of open brush. There were few times when Cody had uninterrupted nights at home, as he can now.
After 25 years and eligible for retirement benefits under the Los Angeles department’s separate pension plan, Cody wanted to cap his career as a chief. That was not likely to happen in Los Angeles where many were also vying for the job and where appointments are likely to be political. Finding an opening in Newark as assistant fire chief, Cody accepted the offer.
“That proved to be a good transition for me after Los Angeles,” Cody said. “Even with constant moves to different areas and 30 different assignments in my career there, Los Angeles didn’t offer the broad sweep of firefighting and administration experience I found in a smaller city. It also gave me a different perspective on the culture of a smaller fire department, a culture that is strong and very community-focused here in Pleasanton.”
Like Fraser, Cody is often at City Council meetings if there’s anything on the agenda or public presentations to be made that affect his department. He’s much involved now in the decision that is likely to be made next Tuesday over whether to allow 51 large estate homes to be built above Kottinger Hills, where the fire department is also insisting on emergency access roads besides the main street.
He’s also on the front line of evaluating the merits of bidding to provide fire safety services to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The lab, under its new management team directed by the University of California and Bechtel Corp., has decided to contract out the firefighting services its own facility has long handled.
Fire training, one of Cody’s responsibilities in Los Angeles, is a major component of the Livermore-Pleasanton Department, with fire departments from throughout the area coming here for training and tests. These include instruction in how to fight house fires, especially at Christmas time when trees, candles and wrapping paper pose major risks for both the homeowners and firefighters.
Cody said his department offers free home inspections and also has self-inspection in materials homeowners can obtain at any fire station.
Leadership Pleasanton and his introduction then to Police Chief Fraser gave him a better insight on Pleasanton and Fraser’s department.
“It quickly turned into a personal relationship that built a foundation that allows us to work together at the professional level,” Cody said. “That’s not the type of relationship police and fire had in Los Angeles.”
Building on the community’s friendship that he has found in meetings with the Chamber of Commerce, city agencies and other groups, Cody works with his firefighting team to participate in parades, downtown events and at school functions.
“The bottom line is that there’s a tremendous amount of camaraderie in both police and fire,” Cody said. “These are very healthy professions where we are in them to help people.”
“Firefighters tend to be the friendly guys on the street, and you’ll often see kids congregating around a fire truck and firefighters holding babies that are passed over to them,” he added. “That’s especially true here in our community where people see us–and we see ourselves–as big brothers, very welcoming, very friendly, but also very well trained to handle any emergency on a moments notice.”
