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Stephanie Kosonen

Burlington may also gain assistant chief position

After working his way through the ranks of law enforcement, Burlington Police Lt. Bill Van Wieringen will take over as Chief of Police March 31.

The Skagit County native has served in the department since 1978 and worked as a patrol officer, patrol sergeant, detective and lieutenant.

“I’ve had just about every other job in the department and I understand how the system works, so when the opportunity came I thought about it and decided it’s probably the right time to give it a try,” Van Wieringen said.

Current Chief Bud Bowers said he wanted his vacancy to be filled by someone who fit in well with the people at the department.

Van Wieringen said his approach to leadership is to give people the straight-forward facts they need to do a good job.

He said he hopes his longevity as lieutenant — Van Wieringen has spent 20 years as second-in-command at the department — shows that he has good people skills.

“You’ve got to be honest and upfront with everybody,” he said. “Even if you’re telling them something they don’t want to hear, you just try to explain the best you can.”

One of the largest challenges he’ll face is that of staffing the department, he said. With about 22 officers, Burlington is behind even last year’s staffing goal of 24. This year, the city has allotted the department 27 officers, leaving five spots to be filled.

“We need to get the people hired because we’ve had to pull our school resource officer and we’ve had to pull our drug task force officer,” Van Wieringen said.

The school resource officer and drug task force officer are positions the department created to take a more proactive stance in crime prevention, but those posts cannot be manned while the crew is short-staffed.

For law enforcement agencies in Washington, the hiring process is pretty competitive right now, he said.

“Everybody’s looking for people across the state. There seems to be waves of interest in this job where at some times people are very interested and at others, they aren’t,” Van Wieringen said. “Years ago, the department would get a lot more applicants.”

After bringing the force up to size, he said ongoing challenges will include keeping the staff trained and up-to-date with the latest in law enforcement technology.

The police department and the city of Burlington have gone through many changes since he was first hired, Van Wieringen said.

For one thing, the city only had five commissioned officers when he started. They worked out of two rooms in the old fire hall on Cherry Street, which now houses the Burlington Chamber of Commerce.

Now computers are involved in the process a lot more than they used to be. One example is that agencies used to get “pawn tickets” from local pawn shops to cross-reference with descriptions of stolen goods. Instead of physical tickets, which had to be manually entered into the computer, officers can check Leads Online, an Internet database that tracks the tickets.

Keeping up to speed on these technology time-savers allows the department to focus on on-the-ground enforcement, Van Wieringen said.

He said one of the department’s strengths is its personnel.

“We have a lot of young people, but we also have a lot of veterans who have the knowledge and the skills, so we get the best of both worlds,” he said.

With a handful of new officers expected to be added this year, it could tip the balance.

“That could change the character of the department a little with all the new people, but it will actually energize the department,” Van Wieringen predicted.

Changes on the horizon also could include a re-alignment of the chain of command. Chief Bowers has requested the Burlington City Council approve an assistant chief position be created.

Bowers said with the growth of the department, administrative tasks are growing as well, creating too much work for the chief and lieutenant.

Van Wieringen echoed Bowers’ desire for an assistant chief.

“If you went back you will see the city has allowed the department to grow but we’ve grown from below the lieutenant, down,” Van Wieringen said.

Having an assistant would put the lieutenant in a third-in-command role, similar to the military. That person would focus on patrol, code enforcement and training, Van Wieringen said.

The assistant chief and chief would work together on the investigative and records units and in budgetary decisions. These outlines are a simplified example, he said — “there would be some overlapping within the three positions, because we’re still a small department.”

Van Wieringen said he plans to man his new post at the top of the department long enough to accomplish his goals.

He is 53 now — meaning he could legally retire — but it’s not on his radar screen yet.

“It’s going to be a while. There’s things I want to do,” he said. “I’m not planning to retire any time soon.”