City Manager Jill Ingram selected a former Long Beach Police Chief, to be interim head of the Seal Beach Police Department.
The City Council approved Robert M. Luman’s contract at the agency’s Monday, June 27 meeting. The Luman contract was listed on the consent calendar. Chief Luman will official begin his new job Friday, July 1.
Luman officially retired from the Redondo Beach Police Department in 2006, but came out of retirement in July 2009 to become interim police chief for Newport Beach, according to the Long Beach Police Foundation Web site.
Luman will fill the position held by Chief Jeff Kirkpatrick for six years. Kirkpatrick retired on Sunday, June 12 after 34 years in law enforcement. The city will be looking for a permanent replacement while Luman works Kirkpatrick’s old desk.
Kirkpatrick announced his retirement Friday, Feb. 25. The news spread quickly: within hours of the chief’s announcement to his officers that he was retiring, Seal Beach resident Marc Loopesko launched an e-mail campaign to lobby the City Council to appoint Capt. Tim Olson, second in command of the SBPD, as Kirkpatrick’s successor.
Loopesko apparently began spreading the electronic word at about 9:19 a.m., Friday, Feb. 25.
The agreement between Luman and Seal Beach will expire on either Dec. 31 or on the date Luman has worked 906 hours, in order to comply with the rules of the California Public Employee Retirement System, according to a staff report by Ingram.
Luman will be paid a maximum of $4,000 a week, according to Ingram’s report to the City Council. He will only be paid for days he actually works.
Luman will be paid a maximum of $96,000 plus a cell phone allowance of $75 a month for actual expenses. “The former chief’s total compensation for this six-month period would have been approximately $137,000 including employee benefits (approximately 31 percent of his base salary), representing an estimated savings to the city of approximately $40,000 during the term of this agreement,” Ingram wrote.
“Mr. Luman recently served as the interim chief of police for the city of Newport Beach. Mr. Luman retired from the city of Redondo Beach in April 2006,” Ingram wrote.
Luman’s career began in 1968 in the Long Beach Police Department, according to the Newport Beach Police Department Web site. Luman became chief of the Long Beach department in 1996. He was also an interim chief in Redondo Beach.
