by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

The Claremont City Council voted unanimously last week to approve staffing changes for Claremont Police Department and community development department, with most adjustments going in effect by November 1.

Claremont police will lose a sergeant position and gain a new captain position. At community development, new senior planner and building inspector positions were approved and the current principal planner position was reclassified to city planner, effective Wednesday.

“To address staff workloads, improve the efficiency of service to the community, and to allow for more effective employee management and succession planning, staff proposes adjustments to staffing in the Police and Community Development Departments,” read a staff report.

Claremont City Manager Adam Pirrie said the police department changes will help career staff — one chief, one captain, five lieutenants and five sergeants — improve training and supervision of the department’s relatively young officers.

“To develop future leaders in the organization, to create a viable succession plan and to provide more effective supervision of our young workforce, staff believes that the police department command structure must be modified,” Pirrie said. “Doing so will help minimize liability by providing more guidance and training to our newer officers, while providing greater accountability to police department policies and procedures.”

The new police captain will oversee the support services function of the department, including dispatch, records, and the jail, Pirrie said.

“This will allow additional police lieutenant oversight of our young patrol staff and more equally distribute the workload among supervisory staff,” Pirrie said. “A new police captain would also provide more opportunities for staff to gain experience at the police lieutenant rank to prepare for future advancement to police captain and police chief roles in the future.”

The annual fully burdened salary difference between the sergeant, $319,000, and captain, $387,000, is $68,000. Since the position does not require a full-year’s salary in 2025-26, the prorated cost in is $46,000, which will be covered by recent savings in salary following the retirement of former CPD Chief Aaron Fate. Fully burdened salary figures include salary, education incentive pay, uniform pay, deferred compensation, health allowance, pension contribution, life and long-term disability insurance, Medicare, and workers compensation insurance. The base salary for a CPD sergeant is $150,502, a captain $177,757.

In community development, changes are coming to both the planning and building divisions as they see an increase in their respective workloads.

“What we’ve seen over the last few years is an increase in the volume and complexity of the [development] applications that we have been receiving, which necessitates a reconsideration of both staffing levels in the planning division as well as how its management is structured,” Pirrie said.

The planning division will add a new senior planner, and reclassify current principal planner Chris Viers to city planner by October 1. Pirrie said that division’s work has been certified by Community Development Director Brad Johnson for the last several years as the division did not have a head city planner until now.

The building division will add another building inspector at an annual salary of $125,000. “The building division has also experienced a significant increase in the volume of work related to development activity in the city over the last several years,” Pirrie said. “The need for additional staff to perform building inspections is critical, given the increase in this development activity.”

Other items

The council also:

• Unanimously approved the reestablishment of a sister city relationship with Guanajuato, Mexico.
• Recognized the Kiwanis Club of Claremont for its summer concert series fundraising efforts that brought in $11,000 for the city.
• Recognized teen committee chair Lucci Troendle and vice chair Pablo Guevara.
• Heard presentations from San Antonio Regional Hospital, and Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority on its coordinated entry system.
• approved a new month-to-month lease agreement with Tri-City Mental Health Services for its space at the Youth and Family Support Center at 1717 N. Indian Hill Blvd. Tri-City is currently in the process of relocating by September 30, 2026.
• Approved Jesse Emmert to serve on the planning commission through August 31, 2029.

The council also introduced Jennifer Deal and Laurel Tucker to the architectural and preservation commission; Kathryn Mora to the community and human services commission; Megan Callaway to the planning commission; and Frank DeLeo to the police commission.

The council’s next meeting is 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 14 at 225 W. Second St.