Four days into the new year, Police Chief Nan Hegerty visited the office of David Heard, executive director of the Fire and Police Commission. She wore her full dress uniform and held an envelope in her hand, a letter of retirement.
Heard was disappointed. He had been working on Hegerty, assuring her of the commissioners’ full support, offering to renegotiate her salary or even cut her second term to two years instead of four. “She was willing to listen,” he says.
Yet it wasn’t enough to change her mind. Many signs suggest Hegerty didn’t have Mayor Tom Barrett’s support. Certainly, the mayor made no attempt to sell her on staying. “I know her well enough,” is his explanation. “She’s not someone who waffles.”
Selected under former Mayor John Norquist, Hegerty was never Barrett’s chief. When appointed in 2003, she signaled she might serve only one term. Her last day will be November 16.
But an informed source says Hegerty didn’t want to retire and, at 56, wanted to serve another term to see her reforms take root. Barrett’s lack of confidence, the source notes, forced Hegerty’s decision.
“I think a mayor of a large urban area and a police chief have to be in sync,” says Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who ran against Barrett in 2004. “My perception is they weren’t in sync.”
The turning point, some suggest, was last Labor Day weekend. After the murder of a Special Olympics athlete and the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl, the chief declared the city’s crime problem reflected a “societal crisis.” Barrett was blindsided, and worse, was attending a conference in Washington D.C. at the time. He weakly dismissed the notion, telling reporters by telephone that the violent surge represented not a crisis but “challenges” for Milwaukee.
“I think people were disappointed in the mayor’s response,” says Ald. Bob Donovan. “We aredealing with a crisis situation. What people are looking for is a plan to turn things around.”
Then came Time magazine’s cover story describing the city’s streets as “lethal chaos” – branding Milwaukee as national poster child for violent crime.
All the bad press was a black eye for Barrett. And with the mayor’s re-election campaign just a year away, the police chief became expendable.
By the time Hegerty decided to leave, she and Barrett had become so distant that she announced her retirement through a memo on her day off – leaving the mayor to respond via a press release. Clearly, the two weren’t talking.
To turn things around, Barrett apparently has decided to start over. But will her retirement help the city? In most circles, Hegerty has drawn praise.
“She has an absolute Clinton-esque empathy when talking to people,” says Woody Welch, a member of the Fire and Police Commission since 1997. “Does she have detractors? Sure. But as far as I’m concerned she’s done an excellent job.”
She has reached out to minorities and won over the Milwaukee Commission on Police Community Relations while getting tougher on crime by re-establishing the department’s gang unit. She has managed relations reasonably well with the thorny police union even as she took a tough stand against rogue cops, firing an unprecedented 37 officers in the wake of the Frank Jude beating. Aggravated assaults and robberies have increased in the last year, but homicides have dropped. And the causes of crime, as Hegerty suggested, are far too complicated to blame on one person.
Ultimately, the Fire and Police Commission hires a new chief. But four of the five commissioners have been appointed or reappointed by Barrett. And he intends to have a say in who is chosen as the new chief. “I’m involved in this,” he says.
The oft-repeated criticism of Barrett is that he hasn’t made his mark on the city. While he’s scored points for keeping the property tax rate in check and going to bat for public education, the crime issue has hurt him. Pollsters he hired to survey voters after Hegerty’s resignation asked numerous questions about crime, even asking respondents to rate her performance.
“This, not shockingly, is a paramount issue for me,” he says of crime.
And so, just days after Hegerty’s resignation, the mayor rode along with Milwaukee police in a highly publicized search of drug houses and then attended a Washington conference of MayorsAgainst Illegal Guns. He’s asked the State Assembly to add two seats to the Fire and Police Commission – members he would appoint.
Bringing in a new chief in November makes political sense for Barrett. It will be difficult for opponents to complain about the performance of a police chief who is still fresh and barely beyond the honeymoon period by the election in April 2008.
But politics have trumped policy. Hegerty’s record has been solid and her reforms well received. There’s little evidence that her leadership or policies have failed – and much reason to fear her replacement won’t be an improvement.
