Petaluma police chief to retire, HR head leaving city

Petaluma’s chief of police will retire in October, one of two department heads to leave the city next month, according to the Petaluma city manager’s office.

Patrick Williams, who took the job of Petaluma’s top cop in 2012, informed the city of his plan to retire on Monday, said Scott Brodhun, assistant city manager. It was the same day that the city learned that Dianne Dinsmore, Petaluma’s director of human resources since 2014, had accepted a new role heading human resources for Contra Costa County.

Brodhun said the two employees have left their mark on Petaluma.

“We’re losing two really professional people who have really done a lot for their prospective departments,” he said.

Emerging as the top choice among 40 candidates for the job, Williams joined the Petaluma Police Department after five years as chief of police in the city of Desert Hot Springs. His career in law enforcement spanned nearly three decades by the time he took the job in Petaluma, augmented by roles as an assistant city manager and a city council member, according to a city narrative of his background.

While chief of Desert Hot Springs, Williams headed “Operation Rising Sun,” a 700 officer, 35-agency action targeting alleged gang members in Riverside County that resulted in more than 150 arrests.

His tenure in Petaluma included the establishment of a formal community-oriented policing program known as Petaluma Policing, which Brodhun was quick to cite when asked about Williams’ legacy in the city. The strategy included the subdivision of four existing police beats into smaller geographic assignments, with officers assigned long-term to those areas.

“His legacy will be, I suspect, Petaluma Policing, which is a method of policing that I just think is critical to our community and that his department has bought into, and that he was able to sustain, and probably improve, what has been a really good police department,” Brodhun said.

Williams said he and his wife, Shirley, came to a mutual decision around his retirement from law enforcement over the past weekend. The couple, who have five children, plan to remain as residents of Petaluma, he said.

“I’m in good health, and I just feel the agency is in a good spot,” said Williams, who turns 53 in October. “It’s an opportunity for somebody else to take the organization to the next level.”

He cited a cadre of technology initiatives during his tenure as a notable accomplishments, and described those tools – crime analytics, body cameras, social media and others – as important for expanding the abilities of a department that emerged from the recent recession with a smaller staff.

Williams said he will continue teaching a leadership development course for law enforcement, and that he was also planning to transition to a role in corporate security. He said he planned to remain active in the Petaluma community.

After serving as a member of the San Jacinto City Council for 10 years – three as mayor – from 1992 to 2002, Williams said he did not have plans for public office in Petaluma at this point.

“As a resident of Petaluma, I’m very interested in the priorities of local governments, and I’ll be active in the community in different ways,” he said.

A succession plan is expected before the end of the month, he said, and his last day will be Oct. 8.

Dinsmore, the human resources director, said she will be moving to an organization with roughly 9,000 employees. Petaluma has around 300 workers on its payroll, swelling to as many as 350 including seasonal summer workers, she said.

“It’s a little bigger,” said Dinsmore, 51, with a laugh.

She worked with around 5,000 employees as a human resources director for the Monterey County Health Department before coming to Petaluma two years ago, a move she said was driven by a desire to play a role in a city that was looking to move forward after the turmoil of the recent recession.

Her tenure came at a time of contract negotiations with a swath of the city’s employee bargaining units.

“It was a lot of work, and I’m proud of not just the work I did, but the work the employees did, too,” she said.

Dinsmore said her desire was to return to work for a larger organization, and that her last day working for Petaluma would be Oct. 6. It will ultimately be up to the city manager’s office to determine a plan for her position, she said.

A resident of Rohnert Park, Dinsmore said she planned to remain in the area.

“It’s a great place to be, both as a resident and as an employee, so it wasn’t an easy decision to move on,” she said.

Williams will leave the city with a most recent annual compensation of $193,455, and Dinsmore with a salary of $145,000, the human resources director said.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)