Department of Public Safety acting commissioner Col. Sandy F. Tudela is determined to address issues facing the department\u2014including restoring personnel morale\u2014as he works toward making DPS an accredited department.<\/p>\n
During an interview Wednesday, Tudela said he has scheduled a staff meeting today to discuss various issues that need to be addressed, citing that cooperation from everyone within the department is necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still going to try to move the department forward,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to need to work as a team. It will take a lot of team effort and team work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tudela, who has served about 21 years in the department, said accreditation by the Commission Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, although a very long process, ranks as one of his priorities as it will establish the DPS as a recognized professional police department.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce accredited, then it\u2019s good for us,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes a long process, but if we don\u2019t move, we will never get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another issue being eyed is the promotion of officers within the department.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have some officers who were not promoted. All those officers who are eligible to be promoted, eventually they would be, and I will see to it that it comes with salary [increases],\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to promote somebody and give them the\u2026extra work to do and not compensate [them].\u201d <\/p>\n
Other issues on Tudela\u2019s agenda include improving work relations with all members of DPS, including firemen and police from Rota and Tinian, especially line level officers; manage and resolve issues related to the deployment of DPS personnel, including job retention and management of replacements; address management and personnel issues within the Fire Division, including morale, salary, and training; participate in successful review of DPS operations by consultants from the National Police Foundation (\u201cif we\u2019re successful in obtaining a grant for their services\u201d); review budget issues to include equipment, uniforms, vehicles, promotions, salary level of DPS members, overtime, grant monitoring and grant compliance; review and strengthen ongoing staff training, strengthen anti-corruption activities through staff training and supervisor accountability; and establish a good working relationship with the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Also, Tudela disclosed that plans and options for a volunteer fire department will be pursued.<\/p>\n
As to accepting the role as appointed commissioner of the department, Tudela said he is willing to take up the challenge but he must address his staff first. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll need to look into it because I\u2019ll need to talk to my staff. If they support me, then yes, I will take it. What\u2019s the use of taking the job when you don\u2019t have the support from the staff and management. I can take the challenge and move this department to be where it\u2019s supposed to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Department of Public Safety acting commissioner Col. Sandy F. Tudela is determined to address issues facing the department\u2014including restoring personnel morale\u2014as he works toward making DPS an accredited department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}