Friday marks a new chapter for the Arroyo Grande Police Department as a new chief takes over.
Chief David Culver says serving as interim chief since May helped him understand the importance of fully staffing the department as the city grows.
Another focus will be listening to the community and maintaining transparency to build trust.
“Moving forward, one of the things that we'll be doing is having regularly-scheduled town hall meetings where we're going to invite the community and find out what do they want to see,” Culver said.
As a resident of Arroyo Grande for 15 years, Culver said one of his goals is to get residents comfortable enough to speak with an officer.
“We don't want the community to only see our officers when they're out doing enforcement action,” Culver said. “That is a part of the job and that's something that we have to do if we're going to maintain that public safety, but we want them to understand there's so much more that the officers are doing as well.”
Residents said they’re excited the city chose someone local to represent the police department.
“Having a local means they care about the community,” said Brooklyn Wardram of Arroyo Grande. “They care. They live here, obviously, so they know, they know the area, they know about it and I feel like that's positive for everything.”
Chief Culver will be publicly sworn in at the Aug. 26 City Council meeting.
He takes over for former chief Michael Martinez, who retired in May.
