Updated
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Centralia has chosen a new chief of police, and he’s from California.
Carl Nielsen comes from the Turlock Police Department in California’s central valley, where he is second in command.
Carl Nielsen
He was one of five men extensively interviewed in mid-February and introduced to the public following a nationwide recruitment effort.
In a news release today making the announcement, Centralia City Manager Rob Hill asks the public to join the city in welcoming Nielsen, and extending a helping hand during the transition. He starts work here on May 18.
Nielsen previously served eight years as a sergeant at the Tracy Police Department, also in central California, and before that spent 14 years with the San Diego Police Department. He holds bachelor and masters degrees in emergency services administration from California State University, Long Beach.
He has been active with both Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce, according to Hill.
Centralia Police Department Chief Bob Berg is retiring, after 11 years as head of the department with 31 commissioned officers.
Nielsen, 50, said he’s going on eight years at his present department. He and his wife Jan previously purchased a home in Rochester, with an eye toward retiring in this area in the next 10 years.
She trains police dogs and the couple came to know this area through a friend in the same profession who lives in Tenino, he said.
He describes his style as collaboration; not just partnerships, but relationships, he said.
“I discovered early on if you try to do everything yourself, you can isolate yourself,” he said. “And it doesn’t work as well.”
The pay for the police chief in Lewis County’s most populated city was advertised as between about $100,000 and $122,000. Nielsen will be earning $112,656, according to the city.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Is a meth user defined by income or background? Addiction is addiction.
I think you touched on the deepest truth here, Free Air. A police chief (or ANY cop) by definition can only respond to societal ills that are internally driven by people who make bad choices. Change for the better has to come from within the folks making those choices, but there’s little motivation to do that when you might be subsidized and even celebrated in some cases for those choices.
For all the accountability we expect from police officers, we often place precious little accountability on ourselves.
The more our families deteriorate, the more problems we’ll have from drugs from alcohol to synthetic heroin.
As a culture, we have derogated so far as to celebrate out of marriage births, then have the genuine stupidity to be amazed when that child with no real father or caring mother gets into drugs or other crimes.
No one man can ever change the drug problem in Lewis County; that starts in each and every home and school with two parents who care enough to put kids first, not fit in between parties and bottom feeder boyfriends.
does this man stand for equal justice? …that is the question we need to ask.will the Poor and underprivilege. mentally ill people receive the same justice. and be treated with respect when put in custody as a person who makes 150,000 dollars a year or know someone and political power .most people who used meth come from backgrounds where people are poor and have no hope.so if all were going to do is to arrest them and throw in jail find them.for one thing when they get out of jail the problem is still There. they still have an addiction and now have a fine to pay they cannot afford so what do they do.. but commit another crime and so the cycle continues if the problem is going to be fixe the people need hope..not jailed for the addiction..I strongly feel if the taxpayers paid more for rehabilitation and last for public officials then this problem would be getting better not worse
You’re absolutely right, Tommy. Busting a dealer or user (however justified it might be) is only addressing the symptom, not the cause. It’s like some gun control legislation: You can ban a gun but it doesn’t usually pull its own trigger.
You can’t solve the “meth problem” until you address the reasons why people begin using meth in the first place; i.e. mental illness, boredom, peer pressure, etc.
What is it about people like Bo Rupert? Another person out to cure all the ills of society. With Rupert it is the police. With Dick Knolls it is making the world safe from “Zionists” (My God his crap gets old too). Rupert needs to get a job.
Dick knolls needs to find something more productive in his later years than being on the look out for every communist conspiracy known to mankind.The Chronicle needs to quit publishing their diatribes. It just encourages them.
Bringing someone in from the outside is sometimes a great way to have a new perspective to the agency.
I think that this is a huge mistake!!!!!!!!!!! Lewis County is NOTHING like Turlock, California. I just hope this new chief solves our meth problem here in our community as well as holding his officers accountable for their actions.
Well I guess we now welcome the new chief for the Centralia Police Department to the city of Centralia. Now someone will have to introduce him to BO D RUPERT and fill him in on what he is like and get him prepared for his great video taping. We will now see how this new chief will handle him and what charges can be brought against him to get him off the streets of Centralia. To the new chief of Centralia Police Department, Welcome to Centralia Washington, and as I tell all your officers PLAY SAFE…..